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Andreas Bechtler is a significant participant in the local and
international arts community
not just as a collector but as an artist himself
now at The Projective Eye gallery at UNC Charlotte's Center City
you can see the exhibit Andreas Bechtler The Artist, a retrospective of his work
concentrating on his motion studies,
landscapes,
figurine works
and self-portraits.
Inside UNC Charlotte was invited to bring our cameras into the artist's
studios for a preview of the exhibit
We are now at
Mountain Island Lake
a place we call Little Italy Peninsula Arts Center
and it's a little
grouping of houses
they're all built
the same way
simple structures and each house has four studios for artists to
work in.
We're now in a
in a show room that I can
look at images that are
finished
the ones that are framed are
those that go to galleries
and
so for example if
you look at that green one with the nails so that's one of the
figurines that
is here, not yet finished not framed but it will go
it's close to being finished will be on canvas and then framed
his work is primarily abstract narratives so there's a sense of
abstraction but there's also
a narrative and a story being told
he manipulates it after he takes the photographs
and that's where a lot of the abstruction comes in
he takes a lot of things in and out of focus and plays with selective focus
and that obscures or clarifies certain
aspects.
So I would say that he's a very free play artist that does abstract narratives
somewhat post-modern
but also very contemporary.
I don't think you can totally categorize what he's doing
which is what I like about it.
so all these on that wall you see are there are these figurines
and then lower
standing on the floor
is
the motion picture
that will go
also to gallery.
I found them
full of anecdotes full of sense of humor
he's definitely
playing with some kind of elements of
paradox built on
on scale built on associations and the context of objects or the
setting of his photographs
so they are
a certain level of narrative there are some implied stories and
kind of intriguing
moments which are relating to our everyday life experience
and probably
I found them very autobiographical
but there are some elements which implies connection to his life
experience
so
so very accessible but also quite personal I would say.
There are a lot of references to the water and to the sand
to the beach and Andreas has been talking about it and there's
there's a lot of humor in them and I think we can see illusions to
you know to the culture that surrounds us today.
In this area we see again figurines on the walls
straight down
the three images they are
not framed yet but the framed ones
will come soon and then they go to
Art and Architecture College also downtown.
I'm lucky that
Andreas creative free play has
transpired into this room and that he
welcomes the fact that we have a gallery with
two glass walls
and he's you can see behind me he's playing with that so he's using the
natural light and the architectural
elements of the room to expand his work
in a more of an installation way
which I think glorifies it really and our space so it's a mutually
beneficial situation.
This is an uplifting image for me it
shows a
girl that walks into spring
and for the gallery of UNCC
we have
we created a special installation
of fabric for the window that goes to the
street where the gallery is
so
it will be
a
collection of manipulation of this mother image what I call it
This derived from a series of
shots with the idea this girl in Spring and
from this we took
elements to create these
these curtains for the gallery.
Nature is always a big part of his work that's kind of one of his
it's at the locus of everything he does I think
and then he manipulates nature and creates these settings and
these little narratives.
These images here are
winterscapes from Switzerland
there was a lot of snow and
I transformed them into
into these
stretch landscapes.
Andreas is extremely humble
extremely private and gentle
very gentle very generous and very selfless
and
and I don't think I've met anybody like that in my entire life actually
he's
he's very unique.
My creative process is not thawed out it is
picked up
it's
there
and I have the
the chance to photograph it and
the first step has been taken then.
Then from there it goes
to the computer
to one of the medias to be printed on or
will be rephotographed again
or I take an image that is now a two-dimensional
picture for example
and and take it with me and go to the lake and put it in the water
put some sand over it and start all over again
so
it's a
very often it's just a wonderful
playing with
what is around me.
It's really exciting for the Center City Projective Eye Gallery to have him
here
mostly because we're kind of uncovering
all of the art he's been doing the past ten years that people haven't seen
and so
we're just elated to have
all of this artwork shown
to a lot of people for the first time.