Bendix Harms I Haus Innerst - Expect Yourself

Bendix Harms' unapologetic artistic philosophy has been questioning the methods and means of painting since the 1990s, raising a sense of awareness of the possibilities within narrative painting, all the while insisting on the importance of each subject's singularity. In a painting practice deeply rooted in terminology and words, Harms acts as a conduit between subject and canvas, bringing to life his subjects as they see themselves through a process of immersion and affection, he labels Contentism. 

 

Hailing from a German Expressionist tradition of thick and colourful paint, and fast application, Harms departs from its expressive brushstrokes and repetitiveness in his insistence on the differing treatment of different subjects. Harms observes his immediate surroundings through fine-tuned antennas; seeing what the Black Barn Swallow sees, feeling what the stray cat in the nearby field feels; building steel-like relationships to each of them until his subjects conquer his command-center. They move into his inner house; whisper in his ears, stamp his brain repeatedly, giving him precise orders, for his right arm to start working like a machine. Using dollops of thick oil paint, equipped with any kind of spatulas, scrapers, brushes, Harms' job becomes to make them speak, to make them sing. 

 

Presenting works from the past five years, alongside more recent works, 'Haus Innerst - Expect Yourself' mixes motifs and techniques from the artist's consciously iconoclastic practice, giving a unique insight into the inner world of the German painter. His paintings introduce us to the protagonists of Østerfælden, the farm in Allerup, Denmark where Harms lives and works; his wife Mari with her square-built rascal-face; their black and white cow-cat Mamon, the leader of the farm and heir to Rufus; the European Blue Tit, with its fearless behavior and strong character. The timberwork construction of the barn adjacent to Harms' studio is the foundation for many of the exhibited works, a structure that visually almost seems to quote art history, but in practice works like a typecase, allowing Harms to arrange his subjects in a manner he deems adequate. 

 

In Harms' self-portrait, Der Flötist (Haus Innerst) a dozen swallows inhabit his bodily figure, nestlings scream from the top of their lungs like a choir of fluting flutes, revealing the totality of their relation. Where does the painter end, where do the swallows begin? In Song of NO and Protest Song the swallows remind us of the importance of saying NO as an exit for creating something new and better. In Expect Yourself (Munkenbarock) the testosterone-controlled artist Harms, who is deeply surprised by discovering the Blackcap - one of his most adored subjects - who has occupied his penis; which means: the subject has won. In other works, like HOSTAL Mamon (Worldview), the subject, Mamon the cat, directs Harms to reveal to us its own inner house; a cascade of happy pills, birds, mice and her beloved servants Mari and Bendix. But Harms' paintings are not illustrations; they are depending on all-encompassing relationships to his subjects, which is the condition for reaching the boiling point - on the canvas and in the real life. 

 

Bendix Harms (b. 1967, Germany) received his M.F.A in 1997 from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions in Europe and the US. Harms' work is included in numerous public and private collections including Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt, Germany; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA. Harms lives in Allerup, Denmark.