Alexander Schellbach

"... sometimes I try to change"

In his sculpture and graphic work Schellbach visualises the processes of memory and oblivion or of preservation and extinction. Fading places, found objects and strange stories were reassembled from his own point of view and become constituent parts to his pictorial cosmos. The structure of the artistic works significantly differs in material and scale, but still centres on facets of time. Relics and everyday scenes survive in a fantastic utopia of the designed fictions from a distant reality.

Alexander Schellbach began in his father's pottery workshop in the Harz Mountains before studying sculpture at the Burg Giebichenstein Halle and graduating in combination with the faculty of graphics. His work engages with the tradition of ceramics and graphics, albeit from a considerably divergent perspective: here, the tangible craft gives way to an elusive quality of the individual topics.
A critical illusion of reality adherents to the design of the drawn industrial interiors of his diploma ''Blühende Landschaften“ [ 'Landscapes in bloom']. An overall percipience is enhanced by the correspondence of the monochrome charcoal drawings with the colourful looks of forged used patina in the machine sculptures made from ceramics.

The series ”No News” can be seen as a transition from charcoal to coloured artworks. Scrutinising the process of creating news, Schellbach questions the way we look at the media, how we consume information and how we take its suggestive images for granted without further investigation.
Currently, Schellbach experiments with colour schemes and, along with colour pencils, he uses crayons, gouache and oil paints. Ironic social analyses continuously form the thematic backbone and are mediated satirically.

Before actually starting to draw the image in meticulous line art, the artist is crafting a 3-dimensional model. In this composing phase, Schellbach is looking for suitable small scale models to combine in a major template. Their various props - one might already know them from one of his pencil drawings – are his vast collection of miniature furniture or buildings and different toys or bibelot accessories.
Schellbach literally lives in his depicted adulteration of dimensions. For four years he has been working in his studio adjusted to his flat, ensuring constant changes in usability between apartment and studio. These shifts in perception, either in the drawings or within his ceramic sculptures, are displayed in his art.

Katrin D. Herold M.A.

What is it about your studio space that inspires you?

The little morbid atmosphere

What sounds, scents and sights do you encounter while in your studio?

Music, audiobooks, lectures

What is your favourite material to work with? How has your use of it evolved throughout your practice?

Pencils

What themes do you pursue?

How we construct reality and from which point fiction starts.

What advice has had the biggest impact on your career?

To trust in my work!

If you could install your art absolutely anywhere, where would that be?

The New National Gallery in Berlin would be a fine first obstacle.

If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be?

Anything of van Gogh or a late drawing of Adolf Menzel.

If you weren´t an artist, what would you be doing?

I would be a psychologist or an investment banker.

What are your favourite places besides your studio?

My bed.

EXHIBITIONS

SOLO

GROUP

GALLERIES

PUBLICATIONS

LINKS