Jakobus Durstewitz

A cloudy, drizzly haze drifts over the harbor. Water and sky dissolve into one another and prepare for the darkness of night. Cranes loom dimly on the cloudy horizon. The Indian Yellow of the sunset is reflected in the spray.

Jakobus Durstewitz's solo exhibition "Zwielicht" presents his latest oil paintings, which display a special interplay of colors. In the moments of dusk, the supposedly invisible air becomes visible in a special way: it is filled with rain, haze and smoke - and with the light that is refracted in these suspended particles. More so than in his previous works, the harbor pictures seem to be shrouded in a wet, glowing wall of clouds. Only the industrial facilities of the harbor and the ships give a hint of spatial distance. The short brushstrokes lend permanence to the fleeting reflections and the flickering air. However, Durstewitz does not see his industrial landscapes as glorified idylls, but rather as systems of physical forces, as places in transit and displaced nature. Furthermore, they provide an incentive to trace the effect of color.

Jakobus Durstewitz had lived in Hamburg since the early 1990s and was part of the ‘Hamburger Schule’. Durstewitz has been responsible for the artwork of the Dockville Festival since the beginning and initiated the construction of the art city MS Artville. Today, Durstewitz lives in the Lüneburg Heath and, in addition to painting and music, also devotes himself to large-scale installations for theater and concert stages, such as the stage design for Fettes Brot's farewell tour.