Alvar Reisner "From People to Houses"

"From People to Houses" exhibits Alvar Reisner’s most recent artwork and is his first solo exhibition in five years. As the title of the exhibition suggests, the topic of the exhibit is people, buildings, neighbourhoods and movements of people from house to house - by car, bicycle or on foot. The artist finds inspiration from architecture and from all that carries even the slightest hint of the soviet. Alvar Reisner himself has said that he keeps a so-called painting journal, where each submission (painting) reflects a moment, area and design of a city space. Though we can find parallels from the history of painting, Reisner thinks that historically speaking, the artists mostly took inspiration from romantic landscapes, lakes and forests. And so, following the same concept, the he looks at the city space and at flâneurs, observers, who play a key role in understanding and portraying the city. In these moments, the artist is both the observer and the one being observed. Reisner’s paintings are not a report on reality, but rather leave an impression of a shifted reality. Aesthetic poems that were experienced on the run. He often paints on found or reused canvases, which then continue their journey in the city space and carry their history on as foundations for the paintings. A peculiar sense of humour lies at the backdrop of his paintings, as titles or scenes, that gives his paintings a cheeky sense of recognition. These transient scenes of dynamic movements, that are characteristic to city spaces, display the artist’s own interpretation of the fleeting synergy that lies between people and houses.