Moti Hasson Gallery is pleased to present Leipzig-based painter Aris Kalaizis, who will be showcased through six canvases as part of Gettersby, his first New York solo exhibition.

There is a certain patience that is required in taking in the paintings of Aris Kalaizis, whose scenic canvases frequently depict scenarios that are carefully crafted, yet strangely surreal. “My work is a search, an eternal meandering through areas I haven’t yet contemplated or occupied,” the artist contends, “You must understand that in all of my paintings there are those shady areas of transition.”

In Gettersby, these range from interior to outdoor scenes, and from rectilinear to round canvases, and where relationships clearly exist between the figures portrayed in much of his work and the environments in which they are situated. “He works from the perspective of a film director, using all the tools in the painter’s arsenal,” writes critic Carol Strickland. Yet, she continues, “as in performance art, or the disparate array of objects in an installation, Kalaizis’ work demands participation of the audience.”

Like the title of the exhibition, a made-up word that stems from the artist’s impulse to collapse fact and fiction, the works in Gettersby only reinforce Kalaizis’ intention for his paintings to deny any singular reading. Rather, understanding comes in time and coincides with the time it takes for the paintings themselves to be realized. “What emerges are parallel layouts of reality in which the artist shows other possible realities”, maerzgalerie’s Torsten Reiter writes of Kalaizis, who he suggests, paints “as though he was making up films meant to exhaust themselves in a single scene, a single picture”.

So, while much of the locations he paints are sourced from photographs of actual places Kalaizis comes across through his travels, “That which seems to me to be reality, is not what I find interesting, since it will be formed regardless of what I do – whether I want to or not. Painting offers me [an] opportunity to redirect reality.”

A conversation between Aris Kalaizis and art critic and author Carol Strickland will take place on Wednesday, October 24 at 7 pm, with introductory remarks by Sara Reisman, independent curator and ISCP/International Studio and Curatorial Program Director. This event is free and open to the public and a short reception will follow.

Aris Kalaizis (born 1966, Leipzig) lives and works in Leipzig. His work has been showcased in exhibitions throughout Germany and in the United States. Represented by maerzgalerie, Leipzig, Aris Kalaizis is currently a resident at the ISCP/International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York. For more information, visit www.iscp-nyc.org.