Sierra, by Berlin-based artist Christopher Kieling (b. 1988, Munich, Germany) is the inaugural exhibition at Grove Square Galleries. Sierra features a significant body of new paintings created during the lockdown of spring 2020.
In Kieling’s paintings, flat planes of colour characterised by muted pastel tones provide the backdrop for works which explore the balance between realism and simple form. This new body of work created during quarantine, while the world was on hold, presents a visual reduction of his surroundings, drawing on the canvas as a place to explore both real and imagined landscape.
Christopher Kieling, Sierra D4, 2020, Courtesy the artist and Grove Square Galleries
Taking architectural details found within his own home, Kieling places the sinuous, organic figure of Sierra – his girlfriend – in multiple scenes against a backdrop of patterned, hard edges as he blurs the lines between public and private. The patterns reflect the artists interest in mathematics, geometry and crystallography, their limitlessness alluding to an expanse that is in stark contradiction to the stillness of the restricted space.
Influenced by the mathematically inspired works of Escher and Uglow, Kieling explores the pure language of painting–form, colour, composition–through layered imagery. He begins by precisely sketching out his complex compositions and processing them digitally before starting to work on canvas. Using a mix of both acrylic and oil mediums he combines hard geometric patterns and flowing simple lines to create the illusion of depth, drawing the eye into and across the surface and into vistas and interior spaces.
Christopher Kieling, Sierra S 32 V 2, 2020, Courtesy the artist and Grove Square Galleries
Sierra is the inaugural exhibition at Grove Square Galleries, a new London art gallery offering emerging and established collectors an avenue for exploration and discovery. The gallery’s Fitzrovia space will offer a year-round programme of on and offline dynamic talks and events which run in tandem with an artist-led exhibition programme celebrating contemporary art practice worldwide.
8 October – 15th November 2020 Grove Square Galleries, 156 New Cavendish Street, London W1W 6YW
About the Artist
Berlin-based artist Christopher Kieling (b. 1988) graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA in Graphic Design. His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including Sothebeez, Tribes Media, Berlin (2019); Baladi, K49 Galerie, Cologne (2019), Matter, Uli Fischer Galerie, Berlin (2018) and Contrast at The Book Club, London (2012). In 2010 Kieling was the recipient of BarTur photography award and the degree show CAN Audience Award.
