The Erika Deák Gallery is delighted to present its latest exhibition, new drawings by Alexander Tinei.
Tinei is known for his arresting portraits of young men and women, who exist in a world that lies between reality and fiction. Tinei’s new series takes us back to his earlier period in the early 2000s, when he focused on black and white graphics. As then, in his latest works we see figures left to their own, with no space or time to infiltrate, no anchors to hold on to, no context to define themselves. The absence of colour, the gesture of storytelling focused on a single gesture, suggests an emotional intensity where there is no release, no escape route, only the possibility of confronting and absolution.
Tinei’s figures are full of mystery, as the compositions are devoid of any explanation, not because his figures are storyless, but because they are in fact inclusions, guarding their own history like a time capsule. These are lonely figures, mostly young, exiled men, who thematise not only their isolation but also the individualisation of our present world.
Tinei’s drawings like his previous series of paintings and lithographs, are about the evanescence of human existence—the most important moments of existence. These drawings also study the relationship between time and the body and the way in which the corpus col tempo is destroyed or even annihilated. The fragile yet firm lines, the shadings, the empty surfaces, and the gaps all testify to human fragility.
The visuality of these compositions thematizes the relationship between time and memory, how our past stories gradually disappear, how they become null in our minds. The compositions evoke thoughts of absence and passing, which are further intensified by the artist’s strange, gloomy, dreamlike, timeless spaces.