LONDON.- Still life embodies the Dutch Golden Age, brought about by huge wealth from empire and trade. Floral still lifes displayed this cornucopia and abundance, but the genre’s vanitas paintings also highlight the existential crisis created by excessive material wealth. This timeless genre, with its inexhaustible potential, is still a source of inspiration for artists. With the Forget Me Not exhibition, LUMAS London explores how contemporary photographers, painters and illustrators interpret nature through still life in order to create new narratives for the 21st century.

Although the city still seems firmly in Winter’s grip, from 24th March 2017 LUMAS London presents an ode to Spring. Artists Olaf Hajek, Isabelle Menin, René Twigge, and Heiko Hellwig all interpret nature and still life in vastly different ways. René Twigge’s works represent the thoroughly modern meeting of nature and digital technology, whilst other artists draw inspiration from movements as diverse as Rococo and Surrealism.

Forget Me Not presents the stunning overlap between digital art, photography, illustration and painting in vivid colour!

Daniel M. Thurau
With the Forget Me Not exhibition, LUMAS introduces its first limited editions by painter Daniel M. Thurau. Under Thurau’s brush, plants such as sunflowers, tulips and even grass undergo an anthropomorphic transformation, becoming a cast of characters. These tongue-in-cheek pieces nod to the vibrant style of Van Gogh’s still lifes.

“The themes and symbols I use are not the most important aspects of my art. They merely help to convey the sensations. They come from the collective subconscious and give viewers a point of reference to become immersed in the artwork in their own way. I try to reconcile elitism and popular culture by being honest with both and using humour as a connecting link between them.” - Daniel M. Thurau

Heiko Hellwig
Thanks to its delicate nature and transient beauty, the butterfly has always played a prominent symbolic role in the story of art. Symbolising the soul, rebirth and immortality, it has populated the works of painters from the Renaissance to Salvador Dali. Most recently, the butterfly entered the contemporary imagination with the release of Damien Hirst’s Butterfly Colour Paintings.

In his new series, Black and White, Heiko Hellwig also celebrates the beauty and uniqueness of these magnificent creatures. Set before black or white backgrounds, these works allow us to focus in detail on the individual characteristics of each butterfly.

René Twigge
René Twigge’s oeuvre deals with nature in all its facets, encompassing themes such as processes of growth and decay, and the relationship between colour and shape. Since completing her studies in Fine Arts at the Central University of Technology in South Africa, the Australia-based artist has been fascinated with the symbiotic relationship between the environment and technology. Since 2008, Twigge has regularly shown her work in solo and group exhibitions, particularly in and around Australia, South Africa, and Singapore.

Olaf Hajek
Renowned German illustrator Olaf Hajek has featured in the LUMAS collection since 2010. Hajek describes his style as playing on “the imperfection of beauty.” New piece, Strange Flowers Black Paradise, will be introduced for this event and exhibition. This illustration reaffirms Hajek’s standing as a magician with colour, and a virtuoso illustrator and storyteller. The flower arrangement seems to represent both a realistic floral headdress and a dreamlike apparition.

Isabelle Menin
Isabelle Menin’s background in painting clearly informs her latest work. Her luminous colours and playful treatment of texture and materiality fascinate the eye, creating a vortex which draws the viewer’s gaze in deeper and deeper.

Menin calls her compositions “inland photographs and disordered landscapes.” Some of her inspirations include Peter Paul Rubens and the Flemish Primitives, a group of artists in the 15th and 16th centuries whose members included Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling and Rogier Van der Weyden. Although populated by flowers rather than people, Menin’s work echoes that of the Flemish masters in its desire to develop an alternative visual reality