Daniel Lergon OCTAVE

23.09.2006 - 28.10.2006

Galerie Christian Lethert is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Berlin based artist Daniel Lergon. The artist (born 1978) studied with Lothar Baumgarten at the University of Arts Berlin. He graduated February 2006, being awarded the honour of a Meisterschüler.

The show is titled Octave, by definition the eight note of the diatonic scale, counted from the keynote: The tone has doubled the frequency of the fundamental tone. This range of notes all together is also described as an octave. In analogy, the colour spectrum of visible light stretches from red to violet. Covering a frequency of approximately 4 x 1014 to 8 x 1014 Hz that could be seen correspondingly as an octave.

Entering the gallery space, the viewer is drawn into the spatial tension between the colours of two large-scale paintings (each 300 x 300 cm). Both are painted on half-translucent Organza fabric: One in dark, blunt red, the other one in violet. Both colours represent the boundaries of the visible colour spectrum and act as a portal for the exhibition. Continuing further and entering into the backspace, a third large-scale painting (300 x 300 cm) is shown in a purple tone. For that colour, no frequency can be found in the spectrum of white daylight. It is created by overlaying red and violet frequencies and shown as a result of combining both spectral colours of the entrance paintings.

The exhibition shows paintings with pigments and gloss paint on various, partly translucent fabrics as well as works on paper. Stretcher crosses, fabric edges or seams are often left visible. Optical effects e.g. transparency, absorption, reflection, moiré are created and inserted into these pictorial worlds. Besides distinctively analysing colour, the artist raises questions: How far do surfaces and optical effects influence our perception? Furthermore: Does transparency dissolve the plane and stable location or does the view reach into a pictorial world beyond?

The paintings by Daniel Lergon gain for a cosmos of abstract and free, however reasonable and precise shapes. The pictures are left untitled, discouraging any narrative response. The paintings touch our phantasm; its figurative yet defiantly abstract creations appear to come from a different world. Its unusual movements are seemingly frozen in a temporary state. They appear to be visible just for a blink of an eye, more or less spotted by chance. An entire world seems to exist in darkness behind. Probing with the spotlight on, promises to be one of the great adventures.

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