Curators: Marian Grau & Jan Leo Grau
At Illimar Paulโs solo exhibition two worlds meet โ the black-and-white graphic art of the 1970sโ1980s with its political message and the colourful works in the artistโs own technique of the 2020s, which the artist paints onto paper through silkscreen meshes. Paulโs early serigraphs and ink drawings were completed at a time when global tension was tangible โ the arms race, uncertainty, the threat of nuclear war. Decades later, different tones appear in his graphic watercolours: softly pastel, calm, and in their own way poetic. But this does not mean that the world has changed in the meantime. Conflicts repeat and develop, political and economic crises continue, and the world is still endangered and fragile. Only the artistโs viewpoint on life and creative work has changed.
Paul observes conflict and harmony as different expressions of human structure, and the artistโs multilayered oeuvre, in its coherence, has an effect that reflects the essential nature of the world and in some sense is even hope-giving or brings colours into gloom.
