Uwe Wittwer: Outsiders DelightContemporard Art Derry, Derry, UK
Swiss artist Uwe Wittwer creates work using the mediums of watercolour, oil paint and Inkjet prints. Wittwer’s source materials are found images taken from the Internet which he then modifies by blurring, editing, erasing and omitting elements.
There are constant recurrent themes within Wittwer’s work, references to Old Masters paintings, family portraits, still life objects, domestic interiors and war scenes. The question of authenticity of images is at the centre of his work and how authenticity is altered through the mass duplication of images, in particular those produced through the internet.
Wittwer’s work calls on personal memory, history, politics and class structure; subjects that are close to him. On viewing the work our expectation is that the people and places we are seeing are connected emotionally to the artist, a family portrait, a holiday snapshot. Not so, in order to concentrate on the real emotion the artist has detached himself and appropriated anonymous images of unfamiliar people and places.
The resulting works are mysteriously beautiful and haunting, images that render unsettling responses and suggest new narratives.
