Vernissage: September 21, 2019 6-11 pm on Regensburg Gallery Night 2019 With Mathias Hornung GALERIE ISABELLE LESMEISTER is showing works by an artist at this year’s Regensburg Gallery Night, who’s creative techniques and the resulting artworks are as impressive as they are unique. Born in 1965, the artist studied stage and costume design at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart (Germany) from 1988 to 1993 and moved to Berlin in 1992 – his continued center of his life and creative work from then on.
Hornung has already presented his works in many exhibitions across Germany and the USA, as well as France, Canada, Belgium and South Africa. He’s been creating works or entire series, alone or in collaboration in Germany, Canada, Costa Rica, Italy and Indonesia. Before Mathias Hornung started his artistic training and professional career, he used to work as a mechanical engineer, an influence that can be found across his works until today. Upon first glance the beholder might recognize his works to merely consist of abstract patterns, when in fact Hornung’s works prints and reliefs have a much deeper and oftentimes metaphorical topics, imagery, or shapes. If one takes a closer look at one of his works, you might recognize a hand, a city from the top or other, more abstract and still recognizable rhythmic repetitions like the amplitude of a metronome.
The base of Mathias Hornung’s works are rectangular grids, sometimes printed on paper, other times drilled into wood to create three dimensional spaces with craters that dare to get the rhythmic patterns out of control. The metaphorical aspect underlying these circumstances is the understanding of grids and patterns as tools for the creation and maintenance of consistence and rhythm, a tool to keep things in order – an understanding that has been around since antiquity. Used as guidelines, they’re supposed to keep everything and everybody from falling into an imbalance and chaos. Topography and movement in time and space are structured – and yet this theoretical construct is prone to irregularities and errors: Slots and furrows hint at the beginning of uncontrollability and chaos.
Hornung’s works are up to 2,5 meters (8’2’’ ft) long and/or wide and are crafted in a very meticulous process. The works on paper are made through wood prints with offset colors and a planographic printing technique. For the wooden reliefs Hornung’s also using Offset colors, whereby the furrows and slots are cut into different kinds of wood.CRYPTO CODES is opening on this year’s Regensburg Gallery Night 2019 and is showcasing current works by the artist that he created especially for this exhibition and space.
