Marius von Brasch

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oil on canvas. 80 x 80cm (31.5 x31.5 inches). 2024

Like the On Butterflies series, the Untitled series departed from my interest in depicting experiences of change, of becoming 'oneself' as an ongoing metamorphosis.

Oil on canvas. 80 x 80cm (31.5 x31.5 inches). 2024

Like the On Butterflies series, the Untitled series departed from my interest in depicting experiences of change, of becoming what might feel 'oneself' as an ongoing metamorphosis.

Oil on canvas. 80 x 80 cm (31.5 x 31.5 inches). 2024

Oil on canvas. 80 x 80cm (31.5 x31.5 inches). 2024

Like the On Butterflies series, the Untitled series departed from my interest in depicting experiences of change, of becoming what might feel 'oneself' as an ongoing metamorphosis.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

The series On Butterflies started as a meditation on metamorphosis as a metaphor: on moments of liberation and change in life, overlaps of memory and anticipation, an imaginary field around an experience of profound change.

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

Echoing Green is a line from a William Blake poem about stages of life. I had in mind how to achieve, in a painting, a balance between the darkness of what is unknown or a not-yet-visible with its rejunvenating potential, and light that contains already a movement into disintegration and new beginning.

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

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

Oil on linen. 120 x 120cm. 2022

Dragon George refers to an orthodox medieval icon with St. George and the dragon from Crete. In my childhood home had been a wooden old sculpture of St. George which fascinated me. The dragon looked up to the man who looked into a distance. I never liked the idea of the dragon being killed. As the dragon isn’t actually killed, but is threatened, it is more about a suspension, an open question how to get on with the dragon. When I did some research on it, I found that the earliest picture of this motif is the slaying of Tiamat, the Babylonian feminine serpent/dragon. I wanted to develop a positive image, a celebration of meeting this force.

Oil on linen. 120 x 120cm. 2022

Painted in a politically very unstable time, this painting reinvents the alchemical motif of the Black Sun (most evocatively presented in the Renaissance series of illuminations, Splendor Solis).

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

The concept of ‘other night’ appears in complimentary ways in the work of literary critic Maurice Blanchot and psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Alluding to the conditions of identity and making art, it holds the paradox of both the loss of certainty, of one’s name, and of ideas of world and self in tension with transformative and vital journeys through the creative darkness of the ‘night-sea’ (Jung) towards rebirth as a new beginning. Fear and lack co-exist with transformation and abundance. The subject connects also to the transformative journey of Osiris through the night and the alchemical motif of the Black Sun.

For von Brasch, the notion becomes an image and a departure point for his painting process. 

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.'