New Show At Nüart

Dwellings of the Mind is a group exhibition of new work by four artists who create richly imagined worlds. The show includes three painters and one sculptor, each approaching figuration in a way that features familiar objects behaving in atypical fashion. 

In Matthias Brandes paintings, houses float and fly; ocean liners are at once massive and miniature; and horses are both themselves and statues of themselves. In work full of paradox and rich dichotomies: heavy/light, warm/cool, still/moving, animate/inanimate, Brandes creates worlds that feel mythic and ancient, while at the same time, absolutely contemporary. 

Vincenzo Calli paints worlds alive with the serene eroticism of nature, where flowers, animals, and humans revel in the sensuality of the natural world. In Calli’s softly rendered oil paintings, the human and the natural worlds are all parts of the larger whole. 

In the virtuosic imagination of Santiago Pérez, art history, pop culture, and dream-like non-sequitur mingle in wondrous, sometimes chimeric tableaus where Napoleon may balance atop a rearing russet potato and squirrels will possess the hands of feet of a human, warming up alongside a fire. 

Jorge Leyva’s powder-coated steel sculptures frequently feature houses, often in energetic clusters, though sometimes singular. Leyva’s houses are simple forms – iconic, archetypal, pared-down house forms – but they are animated with a gestural subjectivity that gives them movement, identity, and personality. 

The work of this exhibition depicts worlds where humans and nature intertwine, where the real and the imaginal are braided so tightly as to be indistinguishable. These are worlds of audacious imagination, where dwellings have personas, where nature is home, and houses fly.

About the artists

Santiago Pérez is known for highly narrative paintings that read like surreal fairy tales. In his work, strange figures repeat and reappear in chimerical settings and situations. Perez’s cadre of fantastic characters function as allegories for the human condition, and the vignettes they populate explore wild adventures of the imagination. Santiago Pérez was raised in Texas and now lives in New Mexico. His work has been widely exhibited and is included in the collections of the Albuquerque Museum, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, and various private and corporate collections.

Matthias Brandes paints dense, surreal worlds with architecture jumbled and askew, flying houses, and semi-submerged villas. Brandes was born in Bochum, Germany. He studied at the Academy and The University of Hamburg, specializing in art history and art-pedagogy. Since the late '60s he has devoted himself entirely to painting, living and working in Meolo near Venice/Italy. His work has been exhibited in Brussels, London, New York, Singapore, Hongkong, Busan, Seoul and throughout Europe, at Museo MAGI'900 Pieve di Cento/Bologna, Bell Art Center Bejing and Kunstforum Wien.

Vincenzo Calli’s oil paintings celebrate the relationship between sensuality and innocence. Calli explores ancient mysteries with figures that inhabit a mythic world that lies beyond time but are drenched in the light of the sun-soaked Mediterranean. Vincenzo Calli is from the rolling hills of Tuscany. He graduated from the Institute of Art in Sansepolco and then attended the Academy of Fine Art in Florence.  Since 1974, he has participated in over 50 exhibitions throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States. jCalli's paintings are in public, private and museum collections in Italy and in the permanent collection of the Boca Raton Museum, Florida.

Jorge Leyva is known for his monumental powder-coated steel sculptures that explore themes of nature and identity. Born in Peru, Leyva has been based in the US since the 1980s and has exhibited his work widely throughout the country. He studied engineering and fine art in Missouri and Kansas, earning both bachelors and masters degrees, and then a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Leyva’s public art commissions include multiple installations as part of the Chicago Sculpture Exhibit, a sculpture at the Joplin, MO Public Library; and a public fountain located in the Joplin Medical Building. Leyva has served on the Board of Directors for several art and cultural organizations in his community including the Joplin Rotary Club, and the Spiva Center for the Arts. He was an art advisor for the Cultural Affairs Committee (Art in Public Places) and co-founder of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition (JRAC). His paintings and sculptures are found in private collections, corporate collections, and museum collections, both in the United States and abroad. He lives and works from Joplin, Missouri.