Text: Olaf Adam; Photos: Olaf Adam, Matthias Poltrock
This article originally appeared in 0dB - The Magazine of Passion N ° 3
In his work he lets his gaze wander over the world's metropolises, but prefers to stay in Westphalia himself.
"Oh no, this has nothing to do with free will." Matthias Poltrock, born in 1962, sits on his terrace in northern Westphalia, the border with Lower Saxony and the Teutoburg Forest within sight, and ponders what has been driving him to make art for most of his life. He rented his first studio at the tender age of 19, and since then he has invested a lot of time, work and sweat in his passion, which he sees as a calling. A lot would have been easier in the past four decades if he had Just looked for a “decent job”, maybe even made a “career” and also cultivated art as a “hobby.” But that was never an option for the native Westphalian. Rather it is exactly the other way around. According to Jean Paul, art is “the Wine of life ", you often have to do other things to earn a living. Since Matthias cannot live from his art alone, he has over the years found himself jobbing as a drywaller, painter, graphic designer and much more. “It wasn't always easy. Sometimes I've asked myself if I want to continue like this. But giving up art, that just wasn't an option. "
At the moment, however, the situation is “pretty good,” as Matthias says. A job at Lübbering ensures financial security and at the same time leaves enough time for art. There is even a picture of him in the employer's offices, because Lübbering has been very actively involved in art and artists for years and even goes so far that all trainees do a three-day art internship at the beginning of their first year of training. There these young people should learn to recognize and act out their own creativity, often for the first time in their lives. And they meet a colleague there, because the internship takes place in “daun-Town”, an artist and studio project in which Matthias is involved.
Like many artists, Matthias cannot say why it was always clear to him that art is more than just a hobby. Something in him pushes him to express himself through his art and to constantly test his own limits. The technical, content and artistic experiment is therefore a central aspect of his approach and leads to very different works. In order to capture the sublime beauty of the Alps, he needed a completely different technique, a completely different style than for dreaming himself onto a Caribbean beach with a parasol and cocktail. Such experiments often remain individual pieces, sometimes series or entire creative phases emerge from them. Such as the screw collages that Matthias has been making for several years under the artist name K-PAX and that are now traded in galleries in Hamburg, Zurich and Amsterdam. Set pieces of Pop Art meet up with curious everyday finds to create social commentary. Everything is meticulously sorted into orderly chaos and put together in several overlapping layers to form detailed bas-reliefs with often surprising statements. And screwed tightly - the Spax screw serves as a fixed point for this technology, both literally and figuratively.
A recurring theme in this series are the classic Bond films, Matthias aka K-PAX then combines film scenes and old advertising material with documents from the respective year of publication. But current affairs also find their way into the K-PAX factory again and again. For example, when a certain American president meets Captain America and Maoist propaganda heroes in “American Idiot”.
The oil paintings in the MILLIONAIRES VIEW series are completely different, opening a dreamy and perhaps a little envious view of the living conditions of the rich and beautiful. Fascinating architecture meets prime locations in the most beautiful residential areas in the world, with breathtaking views of cities, waters and landscapes. Matthias almost always captures a special evening or night mood in these pictures, the buildings, which are illuminated in warm colors, appear surprisingly homely, the architecture is reduced to its lines to the maximum. The only person in the picture is the viewer, who for a brief moment takes the perspective of the residents of these dream houses, who perhaps are no longer really aware of this privileged beauty.
Again and again something has to be found out that Matthias cannot or does not want to put into words and clear pictures. Then expressive abstract paintings are created, with loud colors and strong brushstrokes, preferably in large formats. And also live in front of an audience as part of a painting performance. Whether it is about rather obscure (and completely unknown to him up to the time of the event) baroque flute music in a church or the topping-out ceremony of a university building, inspiration can be found everywhere and the unprepared and unplanned such situations are what make such actions so special for Matthias .
The artist from Borgholzhausen recently received a special honor: Together with 16 other international artists, he was invited to edit works by the world-renowned Düsseldorf photographer Teddy Marks for the REBORN book project. Matthias was allowed to contribute two works, a K-PAX and a MILLIONAIRES VIEW, both of which reinterpret Marks' nudes in very different ways.
Another MILLIONAIRES VIEW hangs until the end of October 2018 as part of the exhibition “Here and Now - Current Art in Hamm and Westphalia” in the Gustav Lübcke Museum in Hamm and is thus also nominated for the “Art Prize of the City of Hamm”. Sure, Hamm is not London and Borgholzhausen is not Brooklyn. But Matthias never moved to an “art metropolis”, he feels at home here in Westphalia, has his center here, and is at home here. And even if he likes to sell his art, it is neither recognition nor income that drives him to continue. In the reinterpretation of a winged word, the composer Arnold Schönberg wrote at the beginning of the 20th century: “Art does not come from being able to, but from having to.” Matthias will agree.
CONTACT INFO:
Matthias Poltrock
www.poltrock.info
www.dauntown.eu
Matthias' works can be seen in many galleries in the area, in “daun-Town” (by appointment only) and regularly in the AUDITORIUM.
