MARKUS SCHALLER: SPACE GARDEN
to
Gallery Jones 1-258 East 1st Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 1A6
Markus Schaller, "Forced Warping," 2017
aluminum, 82cm x 82cm.
Opening reception: Thursday, November 23, 5 - 8 p.m.
Artists' talk: Saturday, November 25, 2 p.m.
Markus Schaller lives and works in Berlin, Germany. In this body of new work, he departs from his signature style--heavy forged steel sculptures--to create two-dimensional wall-sculptures of embossed aluminum. While still minimalist, these handmade works have a sense of intricacy and balance that sets them apart from his former work. The kaleidoscopic patterning on the metal is sharply symmetrical, with angled sections that reflect the light.
For many years, Schaller's work has thoughtfully contrasted the immense force involved in forging steel objects with the more intimate practice of stamping. Often hidden away on the surface of his large forged sculptures are delicate poems and texts specific to the work, hand-stamped letter by letter. The connection of stamping with a deeper poetic or philosophical meaning is reinstated as a motif in Schaller's new sculptures, where geometric markings in aluminum represent a starting point for a dialogue around fundamental forms in nature.
The patterns in Schaller's recent embossed aluminum work are based on universal principles--in particular the mathematical sciences around crystalline structures, known as Penrose and Kepler tilings. These "impossible" aperiodic tilings were presented as a mathematical theorem in the 1960's and amazingly discovered some twenty years later in the atomic structure of aluminum alloys. The unusual Penrose and Kepler symmetries imprinted on the surface of Schaller's wall-sculptures bear a profound comprehension--one originating with the ancient Greeks-that the universe at its most elementary level is a geometric composition.
Schaller's work has been featured in the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale, with installations in English Bay and in front of the Vancouver Library, and he has also represented Germany at the Venice Biennale. His work is included in private, public and corporate collections around the world.