Andreas Dobler . Paintings from the comfort zone

Alexandre Pollazzon Ltd is pleased to present the second UK solo exhibition Paintings from the Comfort Zone by Swiss artist Andreas Dobler.

While this show sees Dobler revisit the oneiric architectual and visionnary scenes that have become his hallmark, the exhibition moves away from the rigid linear perspectives and tough construction materials of previous works and focuses on increasingly organic textures and forms.

Influenced bu psychedelic culture and Surrealism, as well as science-siction aesthetics, throughout his practice, Dobler has drawn and subverted subject material from realms as post-modern architecture, batik, graffiti, kitsch eroticism pop music and art history. His paintings present a spacial interplay of contardictory objects, antipodal spiritual attitudes and mismatching textures. The scenes he create are always devoid of human figures, although human presence is ingrained in the material and materials portrayed.

At Alexandre Pollazzon Ltd, the exhibition consists of eight paintings that depict bizarre deserted indoor and outdoor urban environments.

The painting Smoking Property depicts a montain covered in houses, smoking a pipe. In Parodontsia, a small houses nestles into giant gums, next to giant teeth. Dubai Monument : an ovoid monolithic sculpture that is based on the design of a bicylcle helmet tower amidst an urban Dubai coastline. Sacre Cœur Overdrive, the Parisian Sacre Cœur lies supine and stretched as a ghostly penetration through the night sky. By antropomorphizing his terrains and presenting us with organic structures, Dobler makes us empathize with his suggestive landscapes.

Paintings from the Comfort Zone present surrealist settings that are hallucinatory utopian/dystopian visions and perhaps, cryptic prophecies about urbanism, originating in the painter's lust to occupy new territory. By indulging in these spaces and grounds, Dobler reflects on his own desire for comfort and security, and painting as an ideal way to reconcile reality and dream.

Andreas Dobler was born 1963, Biel. Lives and works in Zurich.

Recent exhibitions include : 2007, In Deep Ink, Centre d'édition contemporaine, Bâtiment d'Art Contemporain, Geneva, (solo) ; A Fantasy for the Moment, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland ; Une Question de Génération (curated by Michel Ritter), Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France.

Andreas Dobler
Paintings from the comfort zone