The bechter kastowsky gallery is delighted to present the first solo exhibition by Drago Persic (*1981).
Whereas previously he painted ‘black and white pictures with an incredible depth of colour’ (quote, Kathrein), it is now precisely this intensive examination of colour that helps Persic to achieve a new, critical analysis of the potential of his painting in this exhibition.
The small-format canvases, all of the same size, explore one and the same motif - a cloth hanging or draped over an edge, a table. This cloth is captured using a detailed painting technique and precisely recorded material properties and the finest shades.
In the exhibition ‘Beech Ash and Aniseed Oil’, the viewer sees this cloth 41 times. In addition to the folds and the delineation of sharp edges, it is above all the colour that interests Persic so much. The artist himself describes it as an ‘attempt to depict all perceptible shades of colour’, referring directly to Gerhard Richter's 1024 colours in 4 permutations, a project doomed to failure from the outset. The consistent approach is ironically juxtaposed with the moment of chance: the arrangement of the colours, whereby the variations result from the primary and secondary colours used. The individual canvases are perfectly painted interior scenes and at the same time, in their complexity, can also be understood as colour charts. The presentation in the gallery focuses on this shifting of the individual paintings and their changing effect.
