Oliver Bak Joins Sprüth Magers

Sprüth Magers will represent Oliver Bak in conjunction with ADZ Gallery in Lisbon. The announcement concludes Bak’s first solo exhibition with the gallery in Berlin, Ghost Driver, or The Crowned Anarchist (14 September–2 November 2024).

The Danish painter is recognised for his introspective approach. His work interrogates the materials, methods, and influences of painting, reflecting a profound engagement with the medium.

‘To be faced with one of Bak’s canvases is to experience a sensation akin to an oneiric state,’ writes Ocula advisor Rory Mitchell. ‘Layers of oil paint are worked over, removed, and reapplied, enabling imagery slowly to reveal itself from deep within the composition.’

Painters from art history emerge throughout Bak’s paintings. In the Berlin exhibition, Violet Banquet (2024) and Children of the sun (2024) both show a combination of floral motifs and figures floating in space that recalls the work of French Symbolist painter Odilon Redon. Bak’s obsession with flowers and his abstract—albeit emotive—treatment of them likewise brings to mind the work of Cy Twombly.

‘Painting is a very emotional thing,’ Bak told Ocula. ‘I think of [my paintings] as windows holding layers of emotion, stacked up on top of each other.’ Touchingly, the artist started drawing at a young age sitting beside his father, who drew orchids in his downtime from his day job as a biologist. This image leaves one feeling that, despite the scent of the past that permeates much of his work, it’s Bak’s ability to paint his reality that really sings. —[O]

Main image: Oliver Bak, Children of the sun (2024). Oil and wax on linen. 81 x 114 x 2.6 cm. Framed: 83.5 x 116.5 x 4 cm. Courtesy Spruth Magers.