Sincere Intentions

Brandon Lipchik (b. 1993) is an American painter, currently based in New York. Lipchik’s work investigates the process of digital collage and painting within subjects of the male nude, queer identity, and Americana. He is often thought about in context with other contemporary painters which investigates identity between the sum of both real and digital spaces. Lipchik uses 3-D modeling software and other digital tools to reconstruct and re-stage figurative settings as a means to begin the painting process. During the process of translation between digital compositions to paintings, Lipchik emphasizes the importance of discovering new possibilities with paint as influenced by digital screens. Opposed to reproducing the flatness that the digital screen provides, Lipchik emphasizes areas of tactile and physical qualities of paint to simultaneously engage in a dialogue between the tactility of real-world experience and the flatness and immateriality of digital spaces. Lipchik’s latest series of paintings featured in Sincere Intentions, continue to reference the history of male nudes, and queer and American narratives, however, he forgoes a previously pastel-hued palette for a more sombre-tone that connotes film noir and an aura of postwar cynicism. Instead of displaying these bright colors that are easily transmitted through digital screens, Lipchik’s shift in aesthetics is emotional and sentimental, focusing on light and drama that reflects the disenchantment of our times and the collective sense of uncertainty. 

Nadia Perlov (b. 1990) trained as a dancer in Tel Aviv and Rotterdam, before studying at the Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design in Jerusalem and the Städelschule Frankfurt am Main in the class of Judith Hopf until 2017. Perlov now lives and works between Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and Tel Aviv, Israel. As a young Israeli artist, her work is deeply rooted in cultural history and the languages of its production; establishing connections between Jewish history and identity, and the contemporary cultural-political discourse of decolonization. Perlov’s multidisciplinary practice examines broad historical movements, particularly with regard to migratory cultures and their complex identity in relation to the politics of defined areas. 

Perlov presents her Bags & Bugs series in the exhibition, including wall installations with paper bugs encapsulated in pattern-infused, custom-made frames that function as an architectural specimen collection. Much like biological specimens, they call for contemplation and investigation, while repositioning notions of space and how architecture tends to occupy it. Also featured in Sincere Intentions, Perlov’s intricate bag sculptures act as a status symbol: covered in glamorous feathers and patterns, they flaunt their beauty in the hopes of finding a suitable mate. The works have morphed from the motionless bugs trapped in their frames on the gallery walls, spreading and folding into animated three-dimensional creatures and then covering themselves with the extravagant fabrics that once housed them. Perlov’s works are a celebration of life, while conversely exhibiting mankind’s fascination with killing and collecting creatures for observation.

Sonja Yakovleva’s (b. 1989) artistic practice questions the ideology behind the material value and social inequality, specifically with regard to the absence and visibility of women that have been excluded from patriarchally organized high culture. Located at the boundary between art and handicraft, her paper cuts of alternative realities depict female protagonists, glorious histories, uncelebrated celebrations, and female struggles. However, Yakovleva stresses that her choice of medium is considered more feminine than it should be, as in reality, it is rare that a handcraft is dominated by women. Her work is full of revealing observations of patriarchal structures and heteronormative power relations, creating images that acquire the unspeakable appeal of pleasure and in which a liberal self-conception can be felt. In Sincere Intentions, the Frankfurt-based artist invites us to once again engage in her imagined feminine retrospective. Yakoleva’s inspiration for her latest series of papercuts center around female domination, displaying a number of mischievous scenes featuring empowered dominatrix. 

Jan Zöller’s (b. 1992) paintings are full of references to the failure of modernist utopia, German postwar modernity, and ultimately the collapse of turbo-capitalism. As the anarchistic birds in his art are occupying fountains, bathrooms, and saunas to co-opt them as a new place for their community, in a similar way Zöller uses the broken system of the art world in his paintings to recreate the foundation for a new utopia. Zöller presents his work ‘Badebrunnen (cold water clear windows)’ in Sincere Intentions; featuring an abstract representation of a fountain and his signature ‘anarchist’ birds. In his paintings, a fountain is a place that brings together central themes: residential architecture, abstract human figures, birds, and fire. Using these elements as a starting point, Zöller creates settings containing different protagonists in which he outlines the relationships and interdependencies between people and systems – interdependencies of emotions and social togetherness but also of economic cycles.

For more information, please contact the gallery: mail@robertgrunenberg.com