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Manuel StehliUntitled, 2023Oil on canvas190 x 240 cm (74 3/4 x 94 1/2 in)
2023.11.07 – 2024.02.041690 Art Collection Space, 1690 Huaihai Zhong Lu, ShanghaiOpening Reception: Tuesday 7 November 2 - 8 PM上海市徐汇区淮海中路1690号 1690艺术收藏空间开幕酒会：11月7日下午2-8时By invitation of 1690 Art Collection Space in Shanghai, Galerie Marguo is very pleased to present Come Too Close, a solo exhibition of new paintings by the Swiss-Czech artist Manuel Stehli.For this new series of paintings, Stehli utilizes architectural rendering softwares to configure his characters in non-space, before committing them to canvas, where the tensions and dynamics between bodies – states of conspiracy, conviviality, suspense, or desire – take precedence over the intersecting planes of color that constitute them and their anonymous surroundings. Mimicking the scale of our human proportions, these moody yet silent paintings act like screens, inviting the viewer's projections of infinite inner landscapes and longings. -
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Manuel Stehli paints muted, flattened compositions of figures, landscapes, and plants. Alternating between 'wide-shots' and tightly cropped frames, these subjects seem to linger in an indefinable space of dusky tones, reduced to their lowest common denominators of geometric shapes and blocks of pigment.Working serially, atmospherically, Stehli probes the threshold of human recognition, identification, and intimacy. How little definition, texture, or form is needed to induce the humanization of these pictorial elements? In earlier works, the artist modeled his compositions on stock images of people engaged in various modes of interaction, drawing attention to the confoundment of 'real' and 'fake'.
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Manuel Stehli
Untitled, 2023Oil on canvas
240 x 190 cm (94 1/2 x 74 3/4 in) -
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In Untitled (Intimate Talk 6), 2023, a dark khaki plane is foregrounded by four figures garbed in shades of coral, tightly huddled together, plotting. Their backs are turned to the viewer. The duplicity of the scene is captured in the very language used to describe the action: to conspire, from the Latin con (together) spirare (to breathe). Collective breathing is an age-old means of co-regulating the nervous system, syncing individual bodies into one rhythmic organism, creating intimacy. Conspiring, however, is almost always done against something, or someone. This is the fate of the viewer of Stehli’s paintings, which seem to say, as the exhibition’s title suggests: “come close, but no closer”.
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Manuel Stehli
Untitled, 2023Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (66 7/8 x 78 3/4 in) -
For this new suite of paintings, Stehli utilizes architectural rendering softwares to configure his characters in a sort of non- space, before committing them to canvas, where the tensions and dynamics between bodies emerge from and take precedence over the intersecting planes of color that constitute them and their anonymous surroundings.
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Like the solitary fortresses populating the landscapes on view, which serve to ensconce those within its walls and defend against those outside them, these scenes are both invitations and warnings. Occasionally, though, some territory is crossed and contact is made. Sparks fly through the subtle grazing of hands, through the painter’s brush, and our own longing to feel.
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Manuel Stehli paints flat compositions of figures, landscapes, and plants in desaturated, dusky tones. Alternating between wide-shots and tightly cropped frames, these subjects seem to linger in an indefinable space with subtle dimensions, reduced to their lowest common denominators of geometric shapes and blocks of pigment. The resulting scenes are meditative, languorous even.Yet upon longer and closer looking, they appear to be charged with understated actions and brewing dynamics, something approaching a molecular dynamism of life itself. This is in part due to the intense material presence of each composition, achieved through layers and layers of thin paint that have been built up over time, sanded down, dissolved, and built up again.
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Portrait of Manuel Stheli. Photo: Luis Bortt. © Manuel Stehli. Courtesy of the artist
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