PRESS RELEASE

Stalke Galleri is pleased to invite you to the opening reception on Friday, January 11, 2002

This exhibition will feature works by three visual artists: William Anthony (USA), Dirk Larsen (England), and Peter Røssel (Denmark). The exhibition will run until February 22.

Dirk Larsen (England)
"I never had certainty about which motive would 'emerge' until it shifted direction toward 'something else,' merely leaving behind a sense of its arrival," says Dirk Larsen about his meticulously crafted and enchantingly alienated staged paintings.

In his paintings, Dirk Larsen turns both up and down on the world; partly dark, partly playful, and partly burlesque—where the fixation is less about a Freudian interpretation of the subconscious and the surreal and more about the simple, static act of telling a story. "Young Burg-lars" with alienated, severed heads are on their way to their first showdown. And in "Aftermath Friends," the characters cling to cohesion in a time of opposition.

Fortunately, "Dirk Larsen" also "writes" stories... for a confident and prosaic audience, who are invited into his fantastically skewed, Brothers Grimm-like world.

Dirk Larsen was born in Denmark in 1951 and educated at the Royal College of Art, London. He moved to Holland in 1978, where part of his career as half of the performance duo Reindeer Werk brought him into close contact with artist Joseph Beuys. Since 1982, Dirk Larsen has lived and painted in England and regularly exhibits across Europe.

William Anthony (USA)
Strangely enough, I must say, "I am a product of my own students." For a long time, I taught a class where I began by having students draw "from a model." Many of the students produced hesitant and awkward drawings. It was as though there was an inherent insecurity among the students. I could only perceive their "style," their "expression," as a result of this insecurity—these "mistakes" influenced and inspired me. So instead of correcting the students' "mistakes," I influenced them for a while to further explore these personal, skewed expressions.

I secretly adopted my students’ grotesque and unique expressions to create a style that I proudly called my own. Semester after semester, I found that I could adjust and refine this new, personal style. The students and the school administration were excited to see the development, and after a final semester, my students graduated with top grades—and everyone was happy.

William Anthony's works are represented in the following museums: Art Institute of Chicago, Guggenheim Museum, NY, Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, Yale University Art Museum, among others.

Peter Røssel (Denmark)
Since the early 1980s, Peter Røssel has occupied a central position in Danish art and has consistently worked with his foundational figurative visual language throughout the 1990s.

Like the two other artists, Peter Røssel's works also have their personal figurative visual language, often featuring a mix of elements from cartoons, advertisements, and pop imagery. Peter Røssel's works are represented in significant collections, including Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Esbjerg Kunstmuseum, the National Gallery of Denmark, the Royal Collection of Graphic Art, and Horsens Kunstmuseum.