SONNTAG: Painting from Dusseldorf: Jutta Haeckel, Stefan Kürten, Driss Ouadahi, Bjorn Dressler, Stefan Heller, Glen Rubsamen, Stefan Wissel

“Sonntag” means Sunday, and to me is the strangest day of the week.*

Sundays are the traditional day of rest. They frequently entail amusement, recreation, family, reflection and religion. They are the antithesis of the workweek or “the everyday.” They promise the possibility of the exceptional. They are about imagining, dreaming and longing. They may hold a hint of the dread of Monday and what the future might bring.

The representational painters whose works comprise this exhibition — Bjorn Dressler, Jutta Haeckel, Stefan Heller, Driss Ouadahi, Glen Rubsamen, Stefan Wissel — all live and work in Dusseldorf, Germany, though their backgrounds are diverse. In some way, each paints about landscape and all mine notions of the “romantic” or “idyllic.”  The work selected presents a range of interpretations, from Höller’s 18th-century inspired scenes to Wissel’s witty abstractions.    

I see the artists in this show as all connected, like the trademark for Audi with the four overlapping circles.  Imagine six circles, and every one is important for the whole. *

*Stefan Kurten, Spring 2006