Spectator Mode
David Schiesser
August 17, 2018, through August 31, 2018
Opening reception: Friday, August 17, 2018, at 7 PM
Spectator Mode is David Schiesser’s exercise in understanding perspectives and the borders of line drawings. The artist draws inspiration from ego-shooters in multiplayer video games, Google Maps, drones, architectural plans and Renaissance line drawing. In these works, the viewer becomes the bodiless spectator witnessing moments from above. The spectator or subject of each piece, is caught in a moment. A commentary on the age we live in, where humans are encouraged by technology to be everywhere at once, Spectator Mode explores the illusion of tangibility. Devoid of texture, shadows, and colors, the surface of Schiesser’s works create a landscape ripe for an emotionless promenade
David Schiesser (born 1989) is an artist and tattooist from Frankfurt, Germany now residing in Berlin. He graduated from Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach, Germany where he studied under Eike König and Manfred Stumpf. A self-proclaimed draftsman, Schiesser creates figurative drawings that deconstruct perspectives, dimensions and positions with as few lines as needed to be realized. This reduction of detail has allowed Schiesser to embody a minimalized and economized style, even in his choice of small format paper sizes and tattoo work. He prefers a smaller paper format as it “forces [him] to find the essence of every idea,” while tattoos on the human body allow his work to move through different contexts. The relationships among nature, technology and other humans are essential narrations in his work. These narrations accommodate a certain spontaneity and emphasis on captured moments or, a “freeze” as the artist puts it. A “freeze” which implements all the feelings, of the time before and after a moment.