The imagery of the emerging artist duo, Manuel Resch and Maximilian Maria Willeit investigates the nature of abstract art. Their collaborative works introduce semi-comprehensible structures of abstraction embodying geometric configurations and collages arranged into a remarkable visual rhythm on canvas. Τhe artists’ paintings seem to convey a range of narratives inspired by the post-internet age where the digital themes are completely widespread nowadays. Given the digitally rendered texture made by airbrushed techniques, spray paints and acrylics, the artists offer an unordinary perplexity with manifold dimensions into their vague visual compositions. Executed with vivid colours, thick flares of wavering brushes construct their visualizations and reflect dynamic landscapes that characteristically showcase a noteworthy coherence in style and atmosphere.
Words: Yannis Kostarias
The perception of place could be a metaphor or a creative platform in order to approach the artists’ works closely. Rejecting traditional representations of familiarly observed spaces their paintings present visual themes of ambiguous scenes whose abstract spatiality manages to offer various interpretations. Although the artists’ inspiration might derive from an assemblage of daily and uncomplicated sources, the artistic outcome turns up unworldly, utopic and unconventional. Their non-objective art in multiple forms and layers underline the Resch and Willet’s fascination on dense and laborious painting vocabularies and techniques that can be also diverse within the same artwork. Their personal and intimate thoughts are converted into an optical stimulation as well as a deeper engagement with the paintings’ physicality. This unambiguous iconography not only aims to bring up aesthetic enthusiasm to the viewer but also consists a direct invitation to experience the physicality of these abstract landscapes while observing the artwork’s surface.
A complex mix of visual contents creates the right conditions for their post-digital non-objective art. The depth of their illusionary language becomes an alternative way for further involvement with their artistry. Using a vivid colour palette and a wide vocabulary of forms, their paintings reveal a sense of an undiscovered world; painterly speaking, it feels like one composition exists within another one. This multiplicity of shapes and forms leads one painting to enfold various aspects of decoding.
Both Resch and Willeit live and work in Düsseldorf and Berlin, Germany. Resch was born in 1997 in Bolzano, Italy and studied at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin (class of Nader Ahriman). Willeit was also born in 1996 in Bolzano, Italy and studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (class of Rita McBride). Their latest group exhibition, “Nine To Know” (2020), curated by Jenny Brosinski, took place at Ruttkowksi;68 gallery in Paris.
Can you tell us about the process of making your work?
It’s always different but always fun 🙂
How would you define your work in a few words (ideally in 3 words)?
Dumb x 3.
How did you decide to start working together an a duo?
Happened out of nowhere but pretty fucking happy with it.
How do two painters work together in order to create an artwork? Does the painting process end up being collaborative or do you work separately?
We don’t really know tbh.
How do you know when a painting is finished?
Sometimes you know, sometimes you will never know 🙂
Do you believe people are getting more familiar with paintings made based on digital techniques or aesthetics?
Does that matter?
What about the place where you work? What’s your studio space like, and how does it affect your process?
We usually switch ateliers a lot.. 🙂
Which exhibition did you visit last?
Advertisement For A Better World – Max Hetzler Berlin.
What do you hope audiences will take from your work?
As long as they take anything from our work we are fine with it.
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Neither.
Which are your plans for the near future?
Enjoy working on new stuff in our temporary quarantine atelier 😉
© All images are courtesy of the artists