Many of the works on display constantly shift between material object and fiction-forming entity, alluding to the relationship between image, illusion, and the space behind it. In a series of paintings, Platéus takes movie posters that he bought online and, on their backsides, works on the traces and remnants showing through from the front, thus giving a new presence to the image elements that are no longer tangible.

In another series of works, Platéus uses a photocopier and digital image editing software to deconstruct the image and text composition that defines the typical format of comic books. As a result the artist disrupts the linear sequence of the narrative strategy and at the same time reveals a suggestive power that surpasses its designers’ original intentions. In his latest series, consisting of large-format frottages, Platéus transfers the surface structure of urban fragments from New York and Los Angeles onto canvas. Named after people, the paintings attain a subject status and invite the viewer to create a link between name and content. In this respect Platéus’ works take on a narrator position, forming echoes and resonances among each other and undergoing a constant reappraisal.

Images by Mareike Tocha