Marius von Brasch
My work highlights the unconscious filters that shape perception: the invisible yet powerful filters of associations, affects and memories, which are structured by social life and history as much as by the life of the soul. My painting practice translates these liminal layers, legible or illegible, into the medium and materiality of paint. I seek to make them tangible and relatable on the contained painting surface. Each is a unique condensation of this process. I paint ambiguous ‘inscapes’, which are inhabited by enigmatic scenarios revealing mark making and figures in landscapes or more abstract colour fields. I find parallels to my approach in Renaissance illuminations in alchemical manuscripts, and I quote them indirectly in my work. This symbolic alchemical imagery addresses journeys of transformation, identities and evolution of consciousness. However, my interest here is to find new painterly ways to speak about these subjects, without referring literally to the ancient imagery. Furthermore, a dialogue with Baroque, mythological and contemporary paintings, which address the subject of identity, allows me to be part of an ongoing living tradition. I am developing ways of rendering visible the elusive evolutions of identity. The emotional dynamics of colour and how to contain and give form to what seems to evade representation are central to the work.
German-British painter Marius von Brasch received his MA with distinction from Winchester School of Art (Uni of Southampton) where he also completed his practice-based PhD, both in Fine Art Painting. He was awarded the Abbey Fellowship in Painting at The British School in Rome in 2013.
He has a background in psychotherapy and literature and teaches experiential approaches to painting as well as courses on art and literature. He works from his studio in Rookley, Isle of Wight. His work is in the Priseman Seabrook Collection, the University of Essex Modern and Contemporary British Art Collection and private collections. Marius von Brasch is represented by Jenn Singer Gallery.