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Artist: Stephan Kaluza

JD Malat Gallery presents FROM DUST TO BLOOM, a solo exhibition by German artist Stephan Kaluza. Rooted in timeless inspiration from nature, Kaluza arrays various depictions of the subject in both hyper-realistic and abstract paintings. Across both approaches, Kaluza returns to landscapes, forests, and other natural environments as subjects in transformation.

In the Transit series, the works initially appear to serve as highly precise, preservative images of a seemingly intact world. Gradually, they become more ambiguous; disturbances enter the image, forms begin to shift, and the distinction between an observed place and an imagined one becomes difficult to maintain.

The viewers’ experience of the ostentatious beauty of nature, captured in the nunc stans, is sharply challenged with a sudden, sweeping distortion. This tension lies at the heart of The Disappeared, Kaluza’s ongoing body of work. Made up of combination of references from around the world, Kaluza constructs a hyper-real natural setting. These transcriptive montages invite the viewers to approach nature through close observation while simultaneously navigating our dislocation from it.

Alongside these realistic paintings are works from the Sunset series, in which the same motifs become reduced, fragmented, and progressively dissolved. The kaleidoscope of diverse hues, scents, and rapid movements of an intact environment are disassembled into its constituent parts. The abstract image emerges from the realistic depiction, as visible reality gradually loses its fixed nature. This transient passage points towards what may already be disappearing; nature increasingly shaped, controlled, or damaged by human intervention. What initially appears as familiar reality transforms into an autonomous, nearly abstract visual world.

Stephan Kaluza (b. 1964, Bad Iburg) studied art and art history at the Peter Behrens School of Arts, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and later at the Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf University Düsseldorf. His practice, defined by a multidisciplinary background of painting, photography, and writing is characterized by large-format depictions of nature, through which he explores the boundaries between photorealism and abstraction. Stephan Kaluza’s work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous collections worldwide, celebrated for its reverence for the natural world.

all images © the gallery and the artist(s)