René Wirths has become known for a novel form of still life. He takes objects that spark his interest and present him with a painterly challenge into his studio and transforms them on large-format canvases into precisely painted pictorial objects that captivate the viewer with their apparent (photo-)realism.Wirths' pictures show supposedly banal objects from our everyday living environment. While we ourselves would only pay attention to such an object for a brief moment - if at all - Wirths makes the chosen object the sole object of his attention. In an intensive process of observation and creation that, contrary to our fast-moving times, can extend over weeks or even months, he uses an analytical eye to transfer the three-dimensional object with oil paints into a two-dimensional form on the canvas with the highest level of craftsmanship and technique. In doing so, he rejects the use of photographs or projectors as aids. Painting serves Wirths as an instrument with the help of which he deals with phenomenology, i.e. the essence of an object in itself as well as its representation. René Wirths has lived in Berlin since 1970.
Read MoreRenée Wirths has lived in Berlin since 1970. He studied art at the Berlin University of the Arts (1992-1998), and in the final stage of his studies he was in the master class of Wolfgang Petrick. Exhibitions by René Wirths have been shown in Berlin, Zurich, Paris, Prague, Brussels, Seoul and Rotterdam, among others.
Text courtesy Reflex Amsterdam.
