Propelled into the past and oozing from his glands, Michael Bauer’s first exhibition with Megan Mulrooney marries an interest in atmosphere and narrative with a complex meditation on the formal qualities of painting—line, texture, color, and form. Executed on a more intimate scale than the large canvases he has worked with in recent years, each work brings viewers into a distinct scene within the world of the exhibition. The compositions capture abstracted figures and environments that revel in their own deconstruction, evoking a melancholic sense of peace amid environmental decay. Advancing one step beyond the turbulence characteristic of Bauer’s earlier works, these paintings reach toward a quiet aftermath, where aesthetic and ecological disorder is matched with serenity and reflection. The exhibition runs from November 8 – December 21, 2024.
The exhibition was created during a period when Bauer was immersed in science fiction novels of the “dying earth” subgenre. The painting titles, such as Awaiting nightfall, stunned and dwarfed – tears had cut channels in the dust on his face and The eye left the broken head, amused by the past, were inspired by these novels by authors like Jack Vance, Samuel Delaney, Clark Ashton Smith and David Bunch. They offer viewers a glimpse into a world in which the boundaries between the human and the environment are porous, a world that glows beautifully under massive suns and moons, where knights lay down their swords and swamplands transmogrify with massive force.
“There is a certain warmth and calm that emanates from all the [dying earth] stories, and that always had a welcome impact on me. By imagining empty landscapes, by imagining the last breaths of their visitors, there is a feeling of peace (at last),” says Bauer.
Bauer belongs to a generation of German painters who emerged in the early 2000s. His work bears the signature marks of his training in abstraction, demonstrating spontaneity, gestural excess, and a dedication to creating surprising structures that underlie his compositions. His most recent works are his most atmospheric yet, pairing intricate surfaces with environments that channel the irradiant atmospheres of otherworldly landscapes.
“I think of the larger-scale works from the last few years as functioning like a prequel to the smaller works for this show. Having placed the figures in my previous works in a whirlwind of entropy, they are now grappling with the results. Echoes from previous energies surround them, immersing them in a space that is slowly fading. By getting colder, it might also get warmer again.”
