Mixed Reality feat. FinDAC, SKIO, Vermibus

FinDAC, SKIO, Vermibus
“Mixed Reality”

From April 8th we will show “Mixed Reality” with works by FinDAC, SKIO and Vermibus. We are very happy to have new works by FinDAC on display, and also to present with SKIO and Vermibus two new, very exciting artists. In their artworks all artists deal with beauty, aesthetics and their perception in our society

Mixed reality encompasses environments or systems that mix the natural perception of a user with an artificial perception. This sounds a bit like science fiction. But if you look at the term in a less technical way, you quickly realize how intensively we are already confronted with mixed realities. Media, the tremendous flood of information made available to us by the Internet and of course social media put to the notion of what really is to test almost daily.

Nothing is as it seems
The three artists in the show “Mixed Reality” deal with these mixed realities. In his collages, FinDAC indeed shows “torn” protagonists, while combining different versions of the same thing. In doing so, he questions sexual stereotypes and colonial perceptions. SKIO observes everyday life becoming increasingly virtual due to the growing dominance of social media. In his paintings, he examines the uniformity that our society imposes on people and the demand for beauty that is imposed on women in particular. Vermibus also deals with ideals of beauty shaped by society and the media. He humanizes his previously de-personalized models by literally dissolving them and thus offers a sharp social criticism of the advertising and fashion industry.

In display are collages, paintings and analog manipulated photographies.

FinDAC, SKIO, Vermibus
„Mixed Reality“
8th of  April – 13th of  May
Vernissage: 08th of  April 7pm

FinDAC

Born in Cork, Ireland, but actively plying his trade worldwide, Fin DAC is a self-taught, non-conformist urban artist who has defined and perfected an atypical spray paint style he has dubbed ‘Urban Aesthetics’. This style has afforded him a sensationally successful career in just over a decade, with all of his works, print releases and originals now highly sought after. Safe to say, he is an artist with a now world-wide following of loyal collectors. Through his work, Fin explores themes related to female emancipation and empowerment, readjusting the male gaze and disrupting colonialist attitudes particularly surrounding the Eastern experience.
Fin is known for his depictions of Eurasian women and is inspired by traditional and ceremonial dressing, in which these subjects engage. His interest, however, is not superficial or thoughtless. In his illustration of these women, Fin DAC reframes racial and sexual stereotypes that surround them, crafting a narrative that celebrates their sensuality with cultural sensitivity, rather than appropriation.
When he works in an outdoor context, the women Fin DAC paints are often large and commanding, claiming ownership over their urban environment, but also equally feminine, with classically delicate features. Through this duality, Fin asserts that women are both powerful and vulnerable, aesthetic and intellectual, physically capable and with deep emotional reserves.
Although his murals are present in countries and continents all over the globe, Fin remains very much an Outsider artist of the street art scene, preferring instead to plough his own, individual path with personal projects.

SKIO

In his latest series of work «Human in the city» SKIO questions the situation of mankind in a modern world and it´s opressive anonymity. In an everyday life becoming more and more virtual through the growing dominace of social media, his artworks examine the uniformity our society puts on people and the standard of beauty forced upon woman among others. It is common to say the eyes are the mirror of the soul, and by deliberately leaving them away SKIO reinforces this feeling of anonymity in his artworks, and makes way for the ones of the spectator to impersonate these character and reflect on this issue.
SKIO shows the human body in surroundings, that refer to architecture in a surrealist way, questioning our place in the urban environment. He plays with the visual aesthetics and concepts of virtual worlds. Some of his protagonists seem to wear VR glasses, refering to the growing virtual aspect of our evermore changing live.

Skio ’s first murals appeared in 1993 in the Nice region; starting with typical graffiti before moving on to figurative romantic topics fed by pop and TV culture. Today SKIO´s works mixes geometrical shapes and realistic portraits featuring obfuscated eyes. Taking inspirations from Bauhaus movement and surrealism, he is aiming for a rare balance between geometry, anatomy and color through the exploration of minimalism’s complexities.
SKIO has shown his works in numerous exhibitions and festivals all over the world (Paris, London, Mexico, Shanghai…) for the last twenty years making him one of today’s major emerging artists.

Vermibus

From the smoothing of facial skin, over the reduction of eye bags and wrinkles erasure, to enlargement of eyes and lips, “photoshopping” the human body to “perfection” has become the norm in advertising. Beauty has become synonym of success and happiness, and even if the average person realize that this premise is genuinely false it keeps on being socially accepted and followed by the vast majority. In social media these concepts of advertisment are adopted by so called influencers and taken to a vast majority of people who started to present themselves as their personal brand or product.
The Berlin-based artist and activist Vermibus has developed a unique practice centered around the critique of contemporary beauty standards. He comments on the attempts of advertisement and consumer society in general that aim to take away individual identities.

Vermibus gained major attention when he started to remove poster ads from the public space, altered them in his studio, and then re-installed them. In his process Vermibus humanized the figures that were previously depersonalized, as a means of launching a sharp social critique of the advertising industry and their practices on the human body. The public space is essential to the message of Vermibus’ work, and it is where his art begins and ends.

Born in 1987 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Vermibus began writing graffiti in his early teens.
In 2003, he moved to Madrid where he explored different media and and worked with stencils and anti-adverts. Subsequently, he began to work for an advertising agency as an illustrator, and later, as a photographer. In the end of 2010, Vermibus moved to Berlin and was captivated with its thrilling and active street art scene. Soon after he started the „Unveiling Beauty“ project, which was documented by the photographer Mark Rigney and the filmmaker Xar Lee in 2015 and took his inimitable style to a whole new conceptual level. The project resulted in series of new public interventions during the course of the most influential Fashion Week in New York, London, Milan, and Paris. Through a sequence of interventions in the “Big Four”, Vermibus endeavored to address the key issues of beauty-cults, at the very core of their creation.
Since then Vermibus has shown his works in numerous exhibitions and publications. His international reputation has earned him a growing number of loyal collectors worldwide.