Art Miami

The artist duo CASAGRANDE & RECALCATI, who live and work in Milan, feel a connection to the tradition of still life. The flower paintings, titled Hypervanitas, take up the idea of baroque vanitas images, and their close connection with the ephemeral. The flower paintings, titled Hypervanitas, refer to the idea of baroque vanitas paintings, and their close connection with the ephemeral. The paintings are reflections of the inevitable passing of time and illustrate various stages of beauty in continuous metamorphosis. The artist duo, who has already worked for Dolce & Gabbana, skillfully celebrates beauty, materiality, and transience in their paintings. Their latest oil paintings on canvas depict lush, floral compositions that, on closer inspection, already seem to be slowly wilting. The paintings by the artist duo transport us to an imaginary Garden of Eden, which is subject to slow degradation. Here nature portrays itself as a morbid beauty. Everything is fleeting but preserved thanks to the meticulous art of painting.

Leif Trenker, a graduate of the Städelschule in Frankfurt, is considered an important initiator of the New Figuration movement in Germany. In his works, which oscillate between realism and surrealism, the artist, who lives and works in Cologne, examines the effect of light and shadow on architecture, landscapes, and figures. There is deliberately no clear differentiation between fiction and reality, which becomes evident in the expressive and intentionally overdriven use of color in his pictorial worlds. Thus, through a poetic sense of reverie, he disrupts the ordinary, architectural, or natural space and draws in an exciting, fantastical dimension, where the mere visual quality fascinates and at the same time represents his unique style. His paintings on birch wood are instantaneous moments, where figures are mostly depicted in the foreground. Thematically, his work focuses on childhood memories, street and nature views, and scenes of everyday life and parties.

In his paintings, Rayk Goetze addresses the great themes, motifs firmly anchored in the tradition of art history. Goetze is a painterly alchemist; he removes the motif from its context and transfers it to the present. On the one hand, his paintings combine old-masterly precision of color application with strong, two-dimensional color application and, with their somberly luminous colorfulness, create a special aura and tension that transfer the paintings to the present day. Rayk Goetze moves between the poles of the fascination of creative possibilities and a game with the powers, a painting from the deepest conviction, which captivates through its subject matter as well as through its ambivalence and narrative depth.