Johannes Lotz – Unter Uns (Between Us)
1 June—28 July 2007
Galerie Michael Janssen Berlin

Johannes Lotz’ (*1975) first solo exhibition in the Galerie Michael Janssen Berlin is comprised of works in paper and in tempera.
Waves of ballpoint pen lines cover the surface of the drawings and form in the background copious fantastic landscapes, abstract ornaments or baroque interiors. In the foreground they densify to form houses, people and mythical creatures.

What already presented itself in some of the drawings is continued in the paintings. Foreground and background cannot be clearly separated; the picture planes are completely covered with dynamic elements, that refer back to early cubistic and expressionist traditions. Structured in the same colourfulness and materiality as their surroundings, many of the title-inspiring figures free themselves from the mainly abstract pictorial carpet only on closer inspection.

Lotz sees his paintings as a ‘translation of life’. His figures, that seem to be lost and isolated in their contorted surroundings, symbolise man, isolated in an ambiguous world full of contradictions.

Johannes Lotz, who studied painting in the years 1995 to 2004, lives and works in Munich. After participating in a group exhibition, shown in the Cologne gallery in the summer of 2006 and curated by Gert & Uwe Tobias, the Galerie Michael Janssen is happy to now present Lotz’ first solo exhibition.

Johannes Lotz, Unter Uns (Between Us), Installation view, 2007, Galerie Michael Janssen, Berlin