Klaus Schuster

Focusing on single gestures and poses, Klaus Schuster’s figurative paintings blend various styles, and are dense with mystery, surrealism and symbolism, while at the same time incorporating a unique visual language. Schuster’s small format paintings depict figures and architectures in different states and situations. While some of his characters are clearly defined and rendered more naturally, others are only sketches, merging with the ground. The motives of his works are multiple, thereby irradiating the broad possibilities of our complex existence. Some of his characters fill the entire canvas, while others appear as ghostlike creatures in empty or nearly empty rooms. In these latter paintings, ethereal qualities seem to coalesce with a volatile physicality. Schuster’s paintings also manage to achieve a striking illusion of light, as in one untitled work where two luminous yellow figures seem to intertwine and merge, as the paler, more ghostly figure in the right stretches an oversized arm around the other’s shoulder. Schuster’s practice seems to be one of witnessing, and enduring, recording glimpses of melancholia in his surroundings, while also offering an introspective view of his own inner world. Against the backdrop of an ever-increasing flow of information, and as the world lurches from one catastrophe to the next, Schuster’s paintings hint towards a collective state of being and a collective: Their surreal distance and detachment from reality results in Schuster’s figures and situations seem always on the brink of immateriality.

O.T. (Untitled), 2024
Oil on canvas
50 × 70 cm

O.T. (Untitled), 2024
Oil and oil pastels on canvas
31 × 41 cm

O.T. (Untitled), 2023
Oil on canvas
41 × 51 cm

O.T. (Untitled), 2020
Oil on canvas
30 × 42 cm

O.T. (Untitled), 2020
Oil on canvas
30 × 42 cm

O.T. (Untitled), 2020
Oil on canvas
50 × 70 cm