Adam Leech: "Champagne Today, Shit Tomorrow"
- Painting, Video -

Sep 9 – Okt 15, 2011
Opening: Sep 9, 6 – 10 pm

A woman in a window frame, her eyes sheltered by her hand, looking into a glistening afternoon sun ("Tomorrow"); another woman, stirring in a bowl, absorbed in her own action – Adam Leech's paintings at von cirne are quiet and poetic; showing people, the longer you look at, the more essentual they seem to be, the more familiar you seem to be with them. Leech's images open the door to a world of feelings beyond the visible. His anonymous protagonists function as carriers of basic human feelings – thoughtfulness, loneliness, hope.

In times of image flood, Leech is questing for the idiosyncratic expression, for the unique image. His pieces of work are characterized by a reflexive and quiet tenor. His use of light as a central, constitutive element is also very specific. Leech's intention is not to serve the spectator's expectations, but to concern him with the painting. Thus, he also uses unusual compository settings, e.g. in "Interior with Window": Instead of placing the window in a wall as usual, the artist positions it down on the floor and uses it as a source of light coming from below.

Leech is not interested in a highly detailed naturalistic picture, he feels free to leave things out, to make stages of the painting process partially visible. Not referring to the repeated discussion of its sustainability, Adam Leech completely believes in the century-old medium and its original power: to offer the painter an option to develop his own and unique handwriting, knowing well which tradition he is following by doing that. So, Leech sounds the prospects of the genre, checking out in how far the stylistic repertoire of former epoches like fauvism and impressionism are useful for his own artistic purposes.

Besides the quiet and reflexive paintings, Leech uses moving pictures as a means of expression. As an example of his video works, "Speech Bubble" is presented in the exhibtion – a fictional, dense and pointed dialogue between an exponent of a stock-listed company and potential female private investor. The title of the exhibtion "Champagne Today, Shit Tomorrow" is an excerpt of this dialogue. The catchy phrase not only refers to the cynical fatalism of turbo-capitalism, but also names the complex emotional atmosphere of the paintings.

Adam Leech, born 1973 in San Diego, California (US), attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (US) and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (NL). He lives and works in Brussels (Belgium).


von cirne
Galerie/Projekte Jörg Kohnen-May
Lütticher Straße 8 (Eingang Brabanter Straße)
50674 Köln
Fon: +49 221 27 72 87 47
Fax: +49 221 27 72 87 52
Mail: info@voncirne.de
www.von-cirne.de