Sebastian Herzau
25.04.2025 - 06.06.2025
Head full of flowers
E30 Gallery
With Head Full of Flowers, we present two central groups of works by Sebastian Herzau - a painter who questions the boundaries of perception, pictorial tradition and the present with subtle precision. Between illusion and irritation, a work unfolds that simultaneously quotes and transcends classical painting.
Sebastian Herzau (*1980, Schönebeck) succeeds in opening up the genres of portrait and still life - for contradictions, for irony, for depth. Herzau is one of the most independent voices in figurative painting in Germany. After studying at the Burg Giebichenstein School of Art and winning several awards, he has created a body of work that consistently moves between representationalism and dissolution. His paintings appear quiet - and yet they are challenging.
In The Great Below, faces appear through a transparent veil - familiar and at the same time enraptured. The portraits are not classic images, but mirror images of our own perception. The veil is not a mere gesture, but a space of thought between closeness and distance, the visible and the hidden. Herzau directs our gaze to seeing itself - to what is revealed and what is hidden. The stillness of the images carries a tension that binds us for longer than we expect.
Herzau's floral still lifes quote the language of the old masters - and break it up at the same time. Vases with names such as FLIMRA or VILJESTARK stand between magnificently painted blossoms. It is a game with hierarchies: art history meets mass culture, the decorative meets subtle irony. The flowers themselves seem to elude us - blurred, enraptured, almost dreamlike. Yet it is precisely in this blurriness that their presence lies. Transience and beauty, painterly frozen in the moment.
Vernissage: 25.03. from 19.00 to 22.00
Open Sundays: 14-16 - April 27, May 4, May 11, May 18, May 25, June 1 (or make an individual appointment)
E30 Gallery
Egenolffstraße 30
60316 Frankfurt am Main
The current opening hours and all events can always be found on the Instagram page.