UNDERWORLD

Dave Bopp

„Underworld“

08.09. – 17.11.2022

Abstract paintings have always been Dave Bopp’s style. If one wanted to identify an object in his paintings at all, then it would not be of this world, but somewhere between imagination, fantasy and hypostasy. In other words, where our ideas and conceptions can no longer refer to a figurative definition or empirical experience. It is in these spheres that painting has its original place for Dave Bopp, as he says himself: “The exciting and fascinating thing about painting, in my opinion, is inventing images. Developing something that you can’t even think up. In doing so, it is fundamental that a painting detaches itself from a preceding pictorial idea and its creation becomes a self-determined process.”

This process begins classically analog with painting, from which Bopp generates digital templates, which in turn flow into the image creation process in materialized form. Step by step and layer by layer, this gives rise to imaginary worlds that cannot really be imagined and certainly cannot be empirically reconstructed. In recent years, Dave Bopp has technically perfected and further developed this process. In addition, his most recent works impressively demonstrate that the creation of images seems to be almost limitless: located in an “underworld” in which it boils and hisses painterly, unreal and vivid, not of this world.

The monumental “Aftermath” (2020) is a work that is as powerful as it is overwhelming, highly energetic, but no less dystopian. In the medium format “Light-headed, I gazed into the inverted world beneath” (2022), a blue firmament in the upper corner indicates that there is at least some reason for optimism in the “inverted world.” In the work “Sundown” (2019), one can almost smell the burnt earth, while in “Swell” (2022) layers of color pile up to form a mighty wave, behind which a black planet is sinking.

Of course, all this would be too much to say, because: In confrontation with a painting that is not of this world, imagination, fantasy, and hypostasy also threaten to take on a life of their own, despite all the non-figurative nature. But that only makes Dave Bopp’s works even more fascinating.

Dave Bopp (*1988 in Basel) lives and works in Berlin. From 2009 – 2011 he studied at the Zurich University of the Arts, in 2011 he transferred to the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and graduated in 2018 with Prof. Reto Boller. Since 2011, Dave Bopp has had numerous solo exhibitions and exhibition participations, including in Stuttgart, Freiburg, Vienna, Zurich, Berlin, and New York.

Ralf Christofori