Marius von Brasch

Oil on linen, 131 x 131 x 4.5 cm, 2023

Lovers is based on a photo taken in 1993. The two men placed in a secluded piece of forest have been waiting for the click of the self-timer. It’s just two days into what will become a relationship, over the years, now.

Watercolour, ink, coloured pencils, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2024

Watercolour, ink, coloured pencils, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2024

Watercolour, ink, coloured pencils, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2024

Water colour, ink, coloured pencils, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2024

Water colour, coloured pencils, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2024

Water colour, acrylics, coloured pencils, marker, ink, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2023

Water colour, coloured pencils, marker, ink, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2023

Water colour, coloured pencils, marker, ink, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2023

Water colour, coloured pencils, marker, ink, oil pastels on paper, 76 x 57cm, 2023

Part 1 of 3 parts. Oil on linen. 120 x 80cm, 47 x 31.5 inches

I started the painting following a short dream I couldn’t forget. I held a large hare with both hands, his back comfortable on my chest, trusting me, both looking in the same direction. I felt a warm closeness to him, like to a friend. We walked toward a group of people.

I wanted to understand the dream better by starting a painting with him in mind, his wild and unpredictable spirit, his colours. I felt drawn to make a triptych. The timeline of a triptych invites even stronger than a single painting leaping into the simultaneity of events and feelings, along points of past, presence and potential.

The painting took me a long time, it was difficult, evasive and eventually joyful.

I thought about my growing reconnection to nature and cycles, to wordlessness and a knowing when to become invisible and when, like my dream messenger in that night, to worship the moon.

Part 2 of 3 parts. Oil on linen. 120 x 80cm, 47 x 31.5 inches

I started the painting following a short dream I couldn’t forget. I held a large hare with both hands, his back comfortable on my chest, trusting me, both looking in the same direction. I felt a warm closeness to him, like to a friend. We walked toward a group of people.

I wanted to understand the dream better by starting a painting with him in mind, his wild and unpredictable spirit, his colours. I felt drawn to make a triptych. The timeline of a triptych invites even stronger than a single painting leaping into the simultaneity of events and feelings, along points of past, presence and potential.

The painting took me a long time, it was difficult, evasive and eventually joyful.

I thought about my growing reconnection to nature and cycles, to wordlessness and a knowing when to become invisible and when, like my dream messenger in that night, to worship the moon.

Part 3 of 3 parts. Oil on linen. 120 x 80cm, 47 x 31.5 inches

I started the painting following a short dream I couldn’t forget. I held a large hare with both hands, his back comfortable on my chest, trusting me, both looking in the same direction. I felt a warm closeness to him, like to a friend. We walked toward a group of people.

I wanted to understand the dream better by starting a painting with him in mind, his wild and unpredictable spirit, his colours. I felt drawn to make a triptych. The timeline of a triptych invites even stronger than a single painting leaping into the simultaneity of events and feelings, along points of past, presence and potential.

The painting took me a long time, it was difficult, evasive and eventually joyful.

I thought about my growing reconnection to nature and cycles, to wordlessness and a knowing when to become invisible and when, like my dream messenger in that night, to worship the moon.

Pansy (Self Portrait as a Child) , oil on linen, 90 × 140 cm, 34 × 55 in. 2023

Oil on linen, 90 x 140 cm, 35.4 x 55.1 inches, 2023

Crayons, water colours, oil pastels on paper. 150 x 115 cm, 59 x 45 inches. 2023

Acrylic in, crayons and markers on paper. 75 x 55 cm, 29.5 x 21.7 inches. 2023

Crayons, water colours, oil pastels on paper. 150 x 115 cm, 59 x 45 inches. 2023

Oil on linen. 120 x 120cm. 2022

Oil on linen. 120 x 120cm. 2022

Watercolour, crayon & oil pastel on paper. Each 76 x 56 cm, 30 x 22 inches. 2022

Crayons, water colour, oil pastel on paper. Each 76 x 58cm (29.92 x 22.44”)

Oil on linen. 60 x 60cm; 23.5” x 23.5”. 2022

Oil on linen (2022) 180.5 x 1205 x 4cm (71” x 47.2” x 1.5”)
Commissioned.

Oil on linen. 50 x 50 cm, 19.68” x 19.68”. 2022

Oil on linen, 180 x 180 cm, 2021

The title is a poem by Lady Izumi Shikibu (10./11. Century) translated from the Japanese by K Rexroth

130 x 130 cm, oil on linen. 2021

Oil on linen. 40 x 50cm. 2021

5 works on paper. Crayons, watercolour, oil pastel, marker on paper. Each 76 x 58 cm.

Oil on linen. 30 x 30cm. 2021

Oil on linen. 30 x 30cm. 2021

Oil on canvas. 80 x 80 cm. 2020

4 ideas. Oil on linen. Each 20 x 20cm

Oil on linen. 60 x 60 cm. 2020

Crayons, watercolour, acrylics on paper. 76 x 58 cm. 2020

3 works on paper. Mixed media. 76 x 58cm

Oil on linen. 180 x 180cm

5 works on paper. Mixed media, mainly Crayon and water colour. Each 76 x 58cm. 2019

Oil on linen. 130 x 130cm. 2019

Oil on canvas. 100 x 100cm. 2019

3- part painting. Oil on linen. Each 180 x 120 cm

The title is a line from a poem by Konstantin Kafavis

The installation shots from the Ennui Refigured show at ATP (with Freya Purdue, London 2019) shows how different lighting affects the work. In daylight the pinks appears bluer than in the actual lighting in a space where the pinks gains more fire.

Oil on linen. 180 x 180cm

Mixed media on 300g Fabriano paper. Each 72 x 50 cm. 2018

6 paintings, oil on linen, 20 x 20cm each, and oil on wooden board, 40.5 x 30.5cm each

Oil on linen. 50 x 50 cm. 2018

Oil on linen. 50 x 50 cm. 2018

Oil on linen. 50 x 50 cm. 2018

Oil on canvas. 100 x 100cm. 2018

Oil on canvas. 100 x 100cm. 2018

Oil on linen. 60 x 60cm. 2018

Each 40 x 40 cm. Oil on linen. 

Oil on linen. 100 x 100 cm.

Oil on linen. 180 x 180 cm.

'Fire which does not burn; water which does not wet the hands'
from Gloria Mundi (1526), in Patrick Harpur: The Philosophers' Secret Fire (2002)

Oil on linen. 70 x 114 cm.

Venusboy (Death of Adonis) 2017. Each 60 x 60 cm. Oil on linen.

Each 40 x 40 cm. Oil on linen.

Bion, the Hellenistic poet (2nd c., BC), voices Venus in her lament for her dead lover Adonis 'The goddess of Paphos pours forth as many tears as Adonis pours blood, and all of it turns to flowers on earth: the blood produces the rose, the tears the anemone.'

Oil on linen. 50 x 50 and 20 x 20cm. 2016

Mixed media on paper, each 76 x 56 cm.

Mixed media on paper, each 76 x 56 cm

Series (partly commissioned) 

Oil on linen. Each 60 x 60 cm. 2015

Resonances of Splendor Solis, Renaissance illuminations on alchemical transformations.

Each 48 x 36 cm, oil on linen.

These works were my contribution to A garden at the foot of every tree, a show I curated in June 2015 – the artists were asked to respond to a specific garden; please follow this link to more info about show. I have written specifically about the 4 pieces of Rosarium in this post.

Oil on linen. 48 x 36 cm. 2015 (commissioned)

This series is dedicated to my brother Alexander von Brasch who died in July 2013.

In Egyptian mythology Osiris ’s dead body appears torn and dismembered. The lamentations of his companion Isis express her sadness and love, yet by describing the parts of his body she achieves to recollect him in the medium of image and text. The recollected figure remains incomplete; Osiris must transform into a new generation.

The sun god Re becomes one with Osiris by unifying with his dead body in order to experience mortality and the strength for a renewal: ‘What concerns “yesterday” that is Osiris / What concerns “Tomorrow” that is Re’ (Egypt. Book of the Dead, transl. from Jan Assmann, Ägyptische Geheimnisse, 2004, p.27).

Michael Maier, in his Atalanta Fugiens from 1618, gives us a remarkable alchemical interpretation of the dying/recollected king. You can find the picture in this blog post.

This ongoing series is based on my photography, digital input and quotes of illustrations from Splendor Solis the early Renaissance texts on alchemy. 

The works come in limited editions of 10 signed copies, archival pigment prints (Gliclèe) on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Fine Art paper (38 x 38cm print on 42 x 42cm paper).
 

During my residency at The British School at Rome between October and December 2013 (Abbey Fellowship in Painting) I applied my practice – juxtaposing the ‘authentic’/handmade with the ‘dispersed’/digital – to the notion of ‘vocation’. Starting from Caravaggio’s painting “La vocazione di san Matteo” and its installation at the Chiesa San Luigi dei Francesi as source image, the project questions how vocation can be thought about and visualized without depending on a transcendent source. Outcomes were a series of drawings, paintings and a video.The paintings respond to the installation of the painting in the church.

These paintings build one project in conjunction with a series of seven drawings That Wordless Instant of Change and the digital video Three Things.

7 drawings. Coloured pencil on paper, each 76 x 56 cm

During my residency at The British School at Rome between October and December 2013 (Abbey Fellowship in Painting) I applied my practice – juxtaposing the ‘authentic’/handmade with the ‘dispersed’/digital – to the notion of ‘vocation’. Starting from Caravaggio’s painting “La vocazione di san Matteo” and its installation at the Chiesa San Luigi dei Francesi as source image, the project questions how vocation can be thought about and visualized without depending on a transcendent source.

This series of drawings follows a moment of change i.e. the effect the subtle voice of ‘vocation’.

The work builds one project in conjunction with paintings for Postcards from San Luigi and the digital video Three Things.

A work around the frames of Splendor Solis.Each 48 x 36 cm, oil on linen (commissioned).

An assemblage of paintings (oil on linen) relating to an unfinished play by Friedrich Hölderlin about the philosopher Empedocles who desires and fears to become one with the forces of nature by leaping into the mound of the volcano Etna. In Hölderlin’s play it never comes to this leap, the figure of Empedocles and his resolution remain in a state of suspension. The smaller pieces of this assemblage ‘zoom’ different zones of the main piece.

The assemblage relates to a chapter of my PhD thesis which can be downloaded here .

Coloured Pencil on paper, framed measurement 106 x 204 cm.

Drawing/Installation 2011. Coloured pencil on paper. Each 150 x 300 cm. Installation dimensions variable.

A text stalemate/escape referring to this installation at Feint, London is available here

Paraphrases attempt to retell an alchemical process shown in Splendor Solis, a Renaissance series of book illuminations for alchemical treatises. There we are shown a gradual development of integration of polarities (see Blog). Like in other of my work relating to this series, I have interrupted and fragmented the gradual development in favour of time- and associative zones.

These paintings respond to Splendor Solis, a Renaissance series of book illuminations for alchemical treatises. There we are shown a gradual development of integration of polarities (see Blog). I wanted to break up the frames that hold these ancient images in balance, have interrupted and fragmented the gradual development in favour of a new kind of (necessarily framed) balance.

Each 92 x 92 cm, oil on linen.

Each drawing 77 x 58 cm, coloured pencil on paper.

Oil on linen. Each 122 x 183 cm. 2009

A painted collage of fragments  of Splendor Solis. Subject of these works are stages of the transformation of the dense dark matter to gold, a pattern of alchemy that is widely understood as symbolizing the dynamics between conscious mind and the unconscious, the process of ‘Becoming’.

Both paintings oil on canvas. 60 x 60cm. 2009

The picture in between was the projection of Twins, one of six digital animations onto canvas. You can have a look at the animations here

Collages made from snippets from Splendor Solis.

Each: paper, acrylics on MDF. 45 x 45 cm

Each 22 x 25 x 2.5 cm, acrylics on hard wood panels.

Each 22 x 25 x 2.5 cm, acrylics on hard wood panels. 

Oedipus Diving  consists of 46 paintings (acrylics – Alizarin Crimson and Green Gold) on primed hard wooden panels. Each 22 x 25 x 2.5 cm.

‘Eternity is a child at play, moving pieces on a board. A child is King’ (Heracleitos, Fragments).

The cild in this series is both the observer and the observed, observation taking place both inside and outside of his world. These shifting perspectives are amplified through the use of the imagery belonging to the language to the subconscious mind. Oedipus Diving refers to elements shard by Sophocles’ play and Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex, the latter still considered by many to be the cornerstone of psychoanalysis.

Both myth and modern theory of psychosexual development raise questions around the genesis of masculinity and lead us to examine the concept and reality of gender images and their influence on power structures.

The work has been published as a book (64 pages, 46 images with an introduction by Marius von Brasch. 28 x 22 cm. £12) The book can be ordered here.