Pascal Johanssen - "The incorruptibility of the head"
The artist Matthias Rüppel is a courageous lone-wolf among his generation of young artists.
His work doesn’t present a spectacular firework display of colour or ideas which has been the dominant trademark of the art world in recent years. He has rather retreated to a reduced almost spiritual standpoint. The main theme in his work is the human head and the human identity which he continually explores medatively and gracefully.
With these constantly repeating head-archetypes that are sometimes monumental and at other times very intricate Rüppel has created his own unmistakeable style. He uses the Form of the head to project his intense reflections about his understanding of the human condition in our present day world.
His work is not about the defiction of the individual ego, but rather about common aspects of the collective unconscious.
Rüppel strives to make the observer aware that he has hidden aspects which are not easy to detect. Rüppel work offers one the chance to develop an awareness of ones-self and for others.
Matthias Rüppel was born in Mainz, Germany in 1971. After completing an apprenticeship as a stonemason and sculptor, he studied art for two years in Prag under Prof. Kurt Gebauer.
In 1998 he began studying under Prof. Harro Jacob at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.
During his studies he intensified his research into the relationship between painting, drawing and sculpture and the possibilities that these different forms of expression offer.
Here he was able to distance himself from the common assumption that the idea alone is the main criteria for the meaning of a work of art.
It was more important to him to develop a continuous theme in his work and to make the poetic visual language he has created his own. This development was made all the more easier for him due to his already having the educated eye of a craftsman.
Pascal Johanssen
Curator, Berlin 2006