Blue Velvet Projects is excited to present the group show «Care Package» with works by Adam Cruces, Melanie Ebenhoch, Kaito Itsuki, Yves Scherer, and Philipp Timischl.

The exhibition explores the boundaries of painting through material enhancements to the medium - LED screens, 3D prints, multimedia collages - while incorporating experimental approaches fluctuating between representation and abstraction. Containing a sharp sense of subversion, and a hint of the melancholic, mystery looms through all of the works in this strange but familiar care package.

The term «care package» is generally applied to packages of comfort items sent to absent loved ones, often to college students or overseas military personnel, from their families. Particularly in the U.S., numerous companies now offer pre-assembled packages that can be ordered for delivery. The range of items nowadays constitutes a potpourri of consumer goods mixed with sentimental souvenirs from home. This selection of paintings alludes to this popular practice as a collection of distinct perspectives and methods of painting, which are able to (dis)connect and overlap with one another.

Adam Cruces (b. 1985 in Houston, TX) presents two reliefs with water lilies. These works incorporate influence from art history, while drawing from Cruces’ own background in painting, and combining those with an interest in new technologies. Water lilies are sculpted using 3D software and then printed in synthetic materials. Similar to brushstrokes in a painting, the 3D prints retain very subtle anomalies and artifacts from the sculpting and printing processes.

Melanie Ebenhoch (b. 1985 in Feldkirch, Austria) deals with the interactions of pictorial and architectural spaces charged with projections of the subconscious that are visually achieved through a subtle blurriness of the paint layer. In her cinematic mise en scène, visual effect and narration are in constant suspense. Also, her work titles are references to movies and the classical tondo format reminds of a lens zooming into a depicted scene.

Kaito Itsuki’s (b. 1993 in Sapporo, Japan) oil paintings on canvas display the creation of new mythological figures and fictional organisms. By highlighting the deformity or alienation of these figures, she reflects the process of human self-identification. Her works are characterized by vivid colors and an arrangement of fantastical motifs set within a disquieting atmosphere, including men without faces, cups with faces and subjects that are associated with violence, such as tools with sharp pointed claws.

Yves Scherer (b. 1987 in Solothurn, CH) presents pictorial and multi-material interventions on Japanese Tatami mats that are burnt, sliced, painted, or otherwise altered. Scherer often uses tatami mats as part of his works—a reference to the artist’s own living habits and to everyday objects used in Arte Povera.

Philipp Timischl (b. 1989 in Graz, Austria) is a multimedia artist whose paintings, sculptures and installations juxtapose elements of pop culture, kitsch, gender performance, and digital media to explore collisions between image culture and identity. His oeuvre draws fundamental questions about class-based exclusion, social mobility, and power dynamics.

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