Dessins - Exhibitions

Sutton Lane is pleased to present Dessins, an exhibition of new works on paper by Christoph Ruckhäberle.

With this series of oil pastel drawings the artist embraces a new medium and further explores his interest in line and colour. The use of oil pastel adds a new quality to Ruckhäberle’s work where the process of working with multiple layers and colours – characteristic of the artist’s paintings – gives way to a more direct approach to the figure. The composition of the work lies in the successive superposition of geometric elements, selected and rearranged in various configurations throughout the series.

The exhibition comprises a selection of 36 portraits building on a recent series of paintings shown at Manifesta 7 and an assemblage of linocuts acquired by MoMA in 2007. The investigation of the portrait genre plays an important role in Ruckhäberle’s practice.

The enigmatic and stylised faces displayed in the exhibition evoke African masks and carnivalesque characters. The artist provides no clues as to the origin of the depicted persona. These portraits, strangely suspended in time and painted from memory and imagination, make visible the construction of reality within the genre and invest it with new life.