STEFAN KÜRTEN
b. 1963, GermanyPicturesque houses, stylish bungalows, carefully tended gardens - the works by the Düsseldorf painter show residential architecture that corresponds to the dazzling promise of economic prosperity after the Second World War.
The houses are beautiful, safe and well-designed places. They are based on architectural photographs and Stefan Kürten’s own snapshots from California and Northern Europe. The scenery glows from within in a soft, golden light - an effect Kürten achieves through the use of metallic gold pigments and which reinforces the impression of harmony and wealth.
But there is something unsettling about the perfect, idyllic living world. The sky begins to change in strange colours, indeterminate light sources cast enigmatic shadows. The pictures seem to be on the border between day and night: the beautiful daydream already harbours the germ of the nightmare.
Stefan Kürten is born in 1963, Düsseldorf.
Text courtesy Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art.
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