AMSTERDAM.- Reflex Amsterdam is now showing the solo exhibition 'That Nothing Stays The Same' with new works by René Wirths. On view in the gallery since November 18th, it will run until February 10th.

A lightbulb, a spray bottle, a glass, all seemingly mundane items. On large canvasses painter René Wirths puts quotidian objects under the loop and depicts them with an intense attention to how light dances across their surfaces. His paintings are the result of object transference – with no other visual aid than the object itself – to the second dimension. In the exhibition, 'That Nothing Stays The Same', Reflex Gallery presents a series of objects rendered with breathtaking realism and simultaneous wonder. The exhibition opens November 18th, in presence of the artist.

Look at the world through a kaleidoscope, and you might see a similar geometric division of the real, as evident of Wirths’ paintings. Extend the shutter time on a camera and you might get the same effect of simultaneous movement and stillness. Yet, in the artist’s painting process, there are no cameras nor kaleidoscopes. Naming the objects, he studies “the raw architecture for the painting,” Wirths does not know where the image will end when he begins. In a slow process of negotiation between realism and wonder, the object on the paintings become increasingly independent.

Comparing the process to the making of music, the objects are Wirths’ scores. His instruments are paint, brushes, and canvasses. Tennis shoes bend from wear and tear. A tape dispenser sat on an electric blue background. The mathematical precision renders his works compositions; in the moment they become melody and rhythm. Some translate to the eye as a subtle crescendo of lines, and others like symphonies of reflections. Running parallel to the likes of jazz, his works mirror the logic of skillful improvisation. This is the mastery of René Wirths: taking objects we know, and having us experience them anew.

René Wirths has lived in Berlin since 1970. He studied art at the Berlin University of the Arts (1992-1998), and in the final stage of his studies he was in the master class of Wolfgang Petrick. Exhibitions by René Wirths have been shown in Berlin, Zurich, Paris, Prague, Brussels, Seoul and Rotterdam, among others.

Reflex Amsterdam
'That Nothing Stays The Same'
November 18th, 2023 - February 10th, 2024