Dave Bopp – Worlds Collide / Mountains Form

For this year’s Art Alarm, Galerie Michael Sturm opens the gallery season with a solo exhibition by Dave Bopp. It is almost exactly ten years to the day since the then still-young painter celebrated his debut at the Stuttgart gallery. All the more reason to be excited about his latest works, which were created over the past months specifically for this exhibition.

One thing is certain: Dave Bopp’s work has changed over the years — in its origins, its outcomes, and its process. His initially analytical all-over painting, which dissected the picture surface in intricate detail and confronted viewers with a dizzying “overkill,” has given way to a depth of space that — at least at first glance — appears more ordered. One seems to recognize landscapes — sometimes even with a drawn-in horizon line — though not in landscape format, but in most cases vertically oriented. Yet nothing here is real, earthly, or remotely naturalistic. These landscapes originate in the artist’s mind and take shape in large-format paintings. Just as astonishing is the painting process itself, which Dave Bopp has continually refined.

In the five works from the Sailor 1–6 series, we are immersed in a sea that could best be described as stormy, or at worst, dystopian. Waves that layer the pictorial space like sharp-edged discs appear as insurmountable obstacles; on the horizon, a planet drowns in painterly spray. Elsewhere, glowing red lava flows meet pearlescent shimmering surfaces, and in the canyons, ink-dyed acrylic lacquers flow into each other. Using a pipette, Dave Bopp marbles fantastical surfaces in a water bath. With a fine blade, he applies a scalpel to abruptly shatter the illusion of beauty.

In the work Low Light, the painting condenses into jagged rock formations, while in the upper half of the image, the silhouettes of trees actually begin to take shape. The landscape in the monumental two-part work Disaster Taxon appears downright hostile to life. But there is hope: the title refers to so-called pioneer organisms, which are the first to recolonize a habitat after a catastrophe. In this context, the likewise large-format work Initiation seems like a kind of “new beginning,” in which one can almost make out creature-like figures.

Looking at Dave Bopp’s latest works, which are being shown for the first time at Galerie Michael Sturm, one must conclude once again: this painting is fascinating, unique, and not of this world. It must be experienced.

Dave Bopp (1988 in Basel) lives and works in Berlin. From 2009 to 2011, he studied at the Zurich University of the Arts; in 2011, he transferred to the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, where he graduated in 2018 under Prof. Reto Boller. Since 2011, Dave Bopp has held numerous solo and group exhibitions, including in Stuttgart, Freiburg, Vienna, Zurich, Berlin, and New York.