Stefan Kürten: Die Luge der Erinnerung/The Lie of Memory

German artist Stefan Kürten paints about memory and reality. At first glance, this exhibition is a series of paintings of wallpaper patterns. Painted in lush, light-infused, glowing jewel-tones. The patterning is traditional. Historic and Teutonic. Rigid, and slightly severe.   Closer examination reveals imagery behind the screen of decoration: A child skipping rope. Ranch-style houses with swimming pools. A new car. The convenience and ease of air travel. Scenes of suburban successes.

When you look at the surface of the paintings, you don’t see the images. When you see the images, you don’t see the patterns screening them. To further complicate matters, sometimes another layer of imagery insinuates itself — woven into the regular structure of the patterning.

There are two, sometimes three realities at work here. Co-existing. Sometimes obscuring, sometimes revealing the others. The wallpaper patterns recall the structured, ordered spaces of home. A personal refuge from the increasingly confusing world just outside the door. Memory lies to appease our longing for clarity, safety, understanding. Or perhaps memory itself is a lie.