Paul Pretzer

Paul Pretzer (b. 1981, Paide, Estonia) lives and works in Barcelona and Berlin. In his oil paintings, Pretzer often creates a multiplicity of strange hybrid beings and chimeras, which he endows with attributes borrowed from the world of consumer goods or completely invented, often defying clear interpretation. The scenes are often reminiscent of influential stories from German children's books - small instances of carelessness can lead to terrible consequences. But in Pretzer's pictures we are not confronted with dark disciplinary measures, but rather with black humor. The absurd, bad luck, great misfortune, and the failure of projects large and small just happen. In these paintings, there are no clearly identifiable instigators of fate or injustice. The only thing the artist gives his protagonists on their Sisyphean quest is empathy, which allows his lost creatures, who search for support in ritualized poses, to come very close to us. The culprits or villains seem to suffer as much from the effects of their misdeed as the seemingly identifiable victim.

Paul Pretzer skillfully uses his talent for composition, form and light. Looking at his paintings for the first time, one is tempted to fall back on the comfortable comfort of a seemingly easily accessible painting of figurative certainties. But watch out, we are already trapped, just like Pretzer's figures. And our sympathy for the beings struggling with the absurdity of life quickly turns to self-pity. Pretzer self-consciously places himself in the tradition of panel painting. He uses the best of them, quotes them skillfully, and questions the conventions of seriousness in dealing with art by introducing tragicomedy, the grotesque, and slapstick in a very contemporary way. This ability may be one of the reasons why Pretzer's work has already attracted considerable attention from the national and international art and collecting scene.