Lutz Driessen is showing new paintings in his exhibition ‘Selbstpelikan’ at the artothek - Raum für junge Kunst.
Driessen develops his paintings layer by layer by covering figurative objects with abstract forms, breaking up suggestive volumes with flat surfaces, making transparently overlapping drawings encounter material collages. His figurative motifs confidently use a formal language inspired by pop culture references. In his works, he combines these with classical, often Christian-influenced iconography, such as the martyrdom of St Sebastian or the pelican mentioned in the title.

As a brand for writing materials, the company's logo on school pens has been familiar to many since school days: a pelican with a large downturned beak. When enlarged, one can recognise chicks to be fed with the blood of the pelican’s self-picked breast- a symbol from Christian iconography. In Driessen's black and white large-format drawings, the pelican staggers through the picture space as if brought to life in an animated film, becoming the tragicomic character of a story that is immediately interrupted by the sequence of flat abstract forms in the work. Both design systems assert themselves equally in the painting: next to each other, on top of each other and intertwined.

Another series of paintings attracts attention with its vibrant colours. Arms and hands, legs and feet are grouped around a central form with a rounded physicality and grand gestures. They too are overlaid, sometimes even cut up, by abstract geometric forms that expand the illusionary space in the picture. Round shapes, which can be understood as entry wounds or body orifices, extend the pictorial space into the depths. A strong dynamic is created not only by the composition and colour contrasts within the picture, but above all by an activated, jumping gaze when looking at it.

Lutz Driessen, born in Kleve in 1976, studied at the University of the Arts in Arnhem from 1999 to 2001 and then at the Düsseldorf Art Academy until 2004. He lives and works in Cologne.