The fine & rougher art of Matthias Gephart

REVELATIONS / Photography

geesta — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:04:40 +0000

REVELATIONS. This series is an attempt to recreate mystery and tension around a topic that i find too important to be left out: Heat. On one side it´s challenging to infiltrate an old genre by adding new elements, on the other hand I think that even an over-used stereotye can be celebrated, if the presentation is exaggerated enough to bring back the fascination that once created the original. Just as in the portrait series, i do not create images with people that have a profession in getting paid for being in images. I try to catch the spirit of friends i have and meet.

ABOUT & CONTACT

geesta — Tue, 01 May 2012 00:18:14 +0000

YEAH, BUT IS IT ART? – That’s a quote from a Robert Crumb cartoon, which i have quickly stolen for this text intro. You might know my illustration work, but at this place you find my free works solely: collage, drawings, walls, photography, print. Art? I recently found a quote of mine in an old Graffiti publication, where I stated my belief, that the mission we were after was not even a question of art-or-not-art, that it was just a matter of where to write. Back in the late eighties, our belief was that Graffiti as a term and as a phenomen did not need an evaluation from the academic world. We saw it in a higher position – and we were very serious about that. These are my roots. Today I see my way of finding a higher truth in a world out of balance by giving birth to carefully detailed graphic refuges. I believe that moving across the borders of genres and labels is necessary.

You can get in touch here.

Urban creatives in the countryside: http://blog.zdf.de/dermarker/archives/2376

GALLERY SHOWS

geesta — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:06:10 +0000

SOME IMPRESSIONS from solo exhibitions and group shows in Munich, Milano, Berlin, Cologne and the Ruhr area. I have been collaborating with several galleries in the field of urban/contemporary art, such as Neon Chocolate, Gallery Box32 and West Berlin Gallery and have been invited to present showcases of canvas works, photographs and screenprint series at the Stroke art fairs and on the Bloom show. On several occasions I have teamed up with my brother Felix Gephart, who is a reputated drawer and known for his fabulous book and newspaper illustrations. Recently I tend to less mix and more focus on one artistic discipline in my shows, as it seems to be less irritating for the part of the audience that is not yet familiar with my work. This does not mean that I will start to restrict myself, seriously: I can´t =).

POISONED POSTCARDS / Post Photography

geesta — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:19:41 +0000

WHAT IS A POISONED POSTCARD? Someone kept sending me postcards from places unknown, at least unfound in any tourist attractions guides. These postcards seemed to have made a long long way before ending up in my letterbox, their surface was always damaged and dirty, the cardboard musty and scratched. No text had been written on the backside of the postcard, no identifiable senders sign, the stamp is destroyed. The pictures seemed to be connected to someone’s memory, proof of a strangers visions… i was alienated, but I decided to keep and somehow document them… so i started scanning the frontsides, threw away the original cards. For some years, this was just a private pleasure…. i had these images in a folder… and sometimes even wondered why i kept them… until some friends encouraged me to showcase these pictures. Here they are.

These works are available in limited editions – as prints on canvas or as photographic prints. Beam yourself over to the shop!

MAGIC MOMENTS / Photography & Calligraphy

geesta — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:38:20 +0000

GRAFFITI IS NOT ONLY ABOUT WRITING YOUR NAME ON A WALL. I started writing graffiti in late 1988. At that point, graffiti art was still young in Germany. In the media it was mainly presented as an act of rebellious vandalism, while, as long as there was a nice legal frame, some bigger productions already caught the attention of an audience outside the subcultural realm. The discussion about graffiti outside of the writer’s world was mainly not a discussion about content, not about artistic techniques nor about typographic qualities – it was foremost spinning in repeating circles regarding the question, IF graffiti could be considered as art at all – or if it was more a sociological phenomen, a special form of youth criminality and it´s appearance in Europe the witness of a US-based form of cultural conolisation. I had my own way to deal with the topic: for me, graffiti art stood strong as an elementary form of individualist self expression: I was totally convinced that nothing would ever speak clearer about my mind and my personality than the bold shape and constructive elegance of a wildstyle piece. I did not paint pieces for the public to like them, we did not want to communicate with a majority that we did not share the same language with anymore. This approach was very different from the approach that Street Art took decades later. We liked to feel as self-chosen art outsiders, as an avantgarde, with an own system of signs, cryptic to them and cool to us. Today my approach is more focused on the specific athmosphere of the environment. Ruins of industrial architecture have shaped our landscapes – they seem to materialise as a melancholic victory over the idea of never-ending progress. I want my paintings to give birth to new life in abandoned spaces, under old railroad bridges and along forgotten trails and factories, let them use & transform the gloomy & beautiful aesthetics of decay. The Magic Moment is the point at the end of that process, it contains accumulated hours of intense activity, added up to the history of the place. It also might depict a parallel world, close to us, but hidden in silence.

CANVAS WORK / DRAWING

geesta — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:32:36 +0000

CANVAS, DRAWING OR PRINT? It depends. Screenprinting is the perfect technique to reproduce collage works with type elements, rasterized photo works or graffiti drawings: it allows to merge the different graphic disciplines I love to engage in. I mainly create small editions of of handprinted silkscreen pieces. In my canvas work i use a mix of media, spraypaint, acryl, stencil and brush, pasted elements. I have been working on canvas since 1990 and the surface has sometimes been a test space for new technical approaches that later have been applied on murals outside, as well as the other way round.

MY FOLKS / Photography

geesta — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:58:47 +0000

MY FOLKS PORTRAYED. I´m sure some of these people are your folks too, you need to have a closer look. People are in fact very interesting. I´m happy to know some fascinating humans – and once in a while meet new ones. I always liked portrait photography of a specific kind, not too glamourous, not too clean, not too designed. I use natural light only, sometimes a small flash, but no studio equipment. The folks are from the US, Spain, Tokyo, England, Poland, Finland and Germany.These pictures only exist thanks to those who let me take them. That sounds obvious, but i think it´s important enough to be emphasized again right here. Thank you!

SPUK AM OSTKREUZ / Photography

geesta — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:52:13 +0000

OSTKREUZ IS A CROWDED PLACE IN BERLIN, WHERE ONCE STOOD A LONELY OLD HOUSE. A leftover that seemed to heve creeped into our modern times, without being noticed by the masses of busy people passing by. The image of this house was the start of this series. There are always stories behind buildings, streets and secret corners, that are only told if you understand your imagination as a tool to discover. If you do it in the right light, you might find out you´re already part of a ghost story, your environment is just as arranged as the plot of a story written by Edgar Allan Poe or H. P. Lovecraft. But it´s hard to prove, you can´t stop the rotating impressions, a collection of the found & lost outside and inside is steadily growing. One day it might completely embrace your mind and suck you in. SPUK AM OSTKREUZ is a growing photographic series, dealing with these dark circumstances. An infinite edition of non-defined perspectives. These pictures were taken in New York, New England, Berlin, the Ruhr area, Kraków, Cologne, Frankfurt, Paris, Oranienburg and Stuttgart.