Joas-Sebastian Nebe
Joas-Sebastian Nebe is a collage, assemblage, mixed media, and video artist as well as a draftsman and curator who has exhibited in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, Greece, France, Spain, Denmark, South Africa, and across the United States. Recent solo exhibitions include galleries such as UTCL Gallery in Highland Park, Michigan and Plateau Gallery in Berlin. Group exhibitions include participation at Decagon Gallery in New York, Earth Gallery in London, Starta Arta Gallery in New York, Fountain Street Gallery in Boston and MADS Gallery in Milan. Joas has been critically published by LandEscape Contemporary and New York Weekly.
An eclectic artist, Joas’ most interesting works tend to be his watercolor-painted collages of torn encyclopedia pages and assembled imagery. His fascination with obsolete information in the form of Encyclopedia Brittanicca volumes in contrast to current digital encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, points to destruction of narratives. Joas is restructuring knowledge, which he views as subjective storytelling, into new forms of visual consumption. He does not view information as a documentation of history but rather as a subject to be manipulated through his artwork and personal interpretations.
The video art usually entails personal footage manipulated digitally to portray multiple angles at the same time while his installation art, drawings, and mixed media works remain essentially figurative, reimagining dark forms of individuals. Often morbid and deranged, these figurative pieces reflect deep psychological impulses, trauma, and relationships as well as philosophical inclinations. Referring back to the assembled collages, these works are conceptually his strongest works as they use integrative techniques and are based on the concept of information. By destroying the information with paint and reassembling imagery to conduct a new narrative, Joas provokes the viewer to question the purpose of informational structures, both past and present. No matter what medium he works in, Joas dissolves his subject matter into twisted, altered forms which provide insight into the machinations of his personal, and often dark, imagination.
Untitled from 2023 (pictured above) portrays highly stylized drawn figures against a backdrop of incorporated found imagery, probably from magazine clippings. The figures have their facial features colored in red as if to symbolize life and blood. They stand at unrealistic angles towards one another such as standing up and laying down. The faces reflect various emotions from being in a stupor, fear, and relaxation, reflecting a hybrid of emotions of individuality. A deeply psychological and mysterious piece which incorporates new ways of thinking about figurative art.
Joas-Sebastian Nebe creates thoughtful story-telling as well as a destruction and deconstruction of narratives by reassembling both visual and printed information into new forms of consumption. His works are often roughly applied and contain anti-decorative elements such as smears and jagged linearity. Joas’ goal remains not to make commercially-viable work but to push the boundaries of the viewer to reinterpret their perceived notion of information and figurative form. A dynamic and unrelenting artist, Joas-Sebastian Nebe disrupts avenues of thought as much as he creates them.
