Christof Mascher: 1979

The inner laboratory

When talking about the facets of dreams, irritation and fascination follow. Dreams confront us with worlds of experience that are as evident as they are puzzlingly different from everyday experiences in lived reality. This distinction links dreams with intoxication and madness, states of being that are considered exceptional and are only rarely or only accessible to a few. Dreams represent a different, transcendent level that cannot be clearly verified. Even if we cannot comprehend our dreams in detail, we know that they exist and that we live with them. This does not only mean dreams during sleep, but also those that we experience during the day, withdrawn, lost in thought. "Waking dreams are the most important. I have them when I sit quietly in my armchair and let my mind wander," said David Lynch in an interview in 1997. "When you sleep, you don't control your dreams. I like to immerse myself in a dream world that I have created or discovered myself; a world that I choose." Christof Mascher shares Lynch's opinion: "I'm fascinated by dreams themselves and how they work. They have the structure of a story. I want to capture the feeling of dreams. For me, the best thing is to combine simple stories with the feeling of a dream - with the abstractions that are possible in a dream." Even if the daydream cannot be regarded as the sole starting point for Mascher's work, it still has an important significance, especially if one considers one phenomenon in particular: that of the fantastic. Mascher's pictorial worlds are characterised by strange hybrid creatures that can always be categorised under the aspect of the fantastically threatening. These figures are associated in a special way with a frightening force, an energy that manifests itself as a fundamental phenomenon in his work to date. In their various manifestations, they stand for a permanent metamorphosis, for a constant rhythm of shape-shifting from which even man is not immune. According to Mascher, the latter cannot be defined within fixed, demarcated boundaries any more than the animal, but is rather a living being that can change its appearance depending on the situation.bird-like hermaphrodites occupy a central place in numerous pictorial compositions, as well as in the miniature drawings on veneer wood, where such figures are repeatedly found in variations. His teacher Walter Dahn describes this as an "atmosphere like after the 4th World War". The small catalogue is the first solo presentation of the artist, who was born in Hanover in 1979.

Exhibitions:
Gallery of the City of Remscheid, 16/8 - 24/10/2008
Mönchehaus Museum of Modern Art Goslar, 30/8 - 28/8/2008