Stefan Kürten

Overview

Opening reception for the artist: Saturday 10 February, 3-5 pm

The most important themes in my work are flowers, wallpaper-like patterns, and domestic architecture. Of course, I'm referring to places of beauty, comfort and safety in a complex and sometimes frightening world... and our attempts to create a "perfect world" that we can inhabit.

When I paint flowers, I'm not referring to nature in a scientific sense. The buildings I depict are not "real" places. These idealized representations function as tokens of our aspirations, hopes and desires. Perhaps they even lead viewers to consider their unresolved fears.

Too, they are about childhood. I'm attempting to express a mood... one that's nearly impossible for adults to find… a worry-free sense of happiness... like an endless summer, full of beautiful promise.

Stefan Kürten likes to say that every weekend of his childhood was spent accompanying his parents and their realtor in a search for the ideal home. Once that place was found - he was promised - he could have a dog, and life would be complete. The leitmotif of his 40-year painting practice is the exploration of the deep and universal yearning to find Hemingway's "clean, well-lighted place," and the sense of well-being and contentment we hope it will bring.

Hosfelt Gallery has represented Stefan Kürten since its founding in 1996. This is the tenth solo exhibition stemming from that partnership.

Kürten was formerly a professor at the famed Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where, as a young man, he studied with Michael Buthe. He is also an alumnus of the San Francisco Art Institute. Solo museum exhibitions include the Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany; Künstlerverein Malkasten, Düsseldorf; Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld, Germany; Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; and Museum im Kulturspeicher, Würzburg, Germany. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Berkeley Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); and many others. He lives with his wife and daughter in Düsseldorf.