– Get Jason over here.
– Adam wants to see Jason.

is the title of Klaus-Martin Treder’s first solo show at the Galerie Reinhard Hauff, opening June 15th. Klaus-Martin Treder wants to intrigue us. Who is Jason and why does this Adam want to see him, and what does this title have to do with art? What kind of painting does he practice? Are we actually talking about painting here?

Treder uses a personal style and technique, which explores the limits of what a painter can do with paint – as artistic expression and as material. On initial inspection it is challenging to work out exactly how his paintings have been created. Drops and paint splashes on the canvas or copper surfaces are not spontaneous, gestural expressions and statements, but the result of a highly calibrated and methodical procedure. Seemingly random expanses of razor-sharp cut-outs or loose laceworks of dried paint in monochrome colours playing on the contrast between mat and glossy patches have been attached to the surface coats of paint, „dressing up“ the compositions with an overcoat or a loose garment. Treder’s arrangements of forms, surfaces and lines continuously resist attempts at conveying specific messages or allude to any form of figural association. Making use of an archive of drawings Treder over many years methodically has turned into his personal pictorial systems, he strives to take the exploration of abstract painting into virgin territory and to generate a new visual and textural vocabulary. Synesthetically, or eliciting various types of sensorial perceptions, Treder’s compositions are enhanced through incorporation of trivial everyday waste material. Patches of dark lines hatched into the paint surface turn out to be facial hair or dust and particles whereas pills, coffee beans, chewing gum or plastic milk container capsules form various colour spots and textural variations on the paint surfaces.

The title of the exhibition is a quotation from the cult movie by David Lynch Mulholland Drive. David Lynch provided some cryptic hints himself for interpreting the complex multi-layered action in his film, saying: „You will find two important indications already in the opening statement“. Ultimately these hints leave much open for interpretation, so in this exhibition the viewer is advised to observe colours, surfaces, lines, textures coffee beans and pills very carefully!

The exhibition was organized with the kind collaboration of Galerie Jette Rudoph, Berlin.