Thank you Contemporary Art Daily, for bringing to my attention these works by Dirk Stewen now on view in Berlin.

Quite a few artists are doing this pale style of waterbased pigment on paper, typically organic blobs with perhaps some line drawing. I love the delicacy and subtlely these works exude. The loose medium softens the lines. Stewen’s work contains definitive silouettes rather than organic blobs, and I enjoy the simple lines and elegant coloring.

The Hamburg-based artist, born in 1972, had a show in New York in 2006, but has since retreated back to Germany. Typically his works on paper include collage and photography. Both Stewen’s style and choice of medium are part of a growing trend, and it’s one that favors delicacy over monumentality. Combined with the tendency to show vaguely defined shapes, it suggests mutability and transience in its most fragile sense.