ODEEH X WELTBRANDT

„To combine the unusual, to load objects with poetic enchantment“, the artist says, referring to hiseven early works and drawing a straight line to his recent paintings and to his collaboration with ODEEH. There is a deep conceptual link between his works in different media – from his installation of a freezer with a mattress, spinning around on a mirror, called “Happy Together” from 2013, to his oil paintings “little dirty paradises” from 2020 – and to the collaboration in fashion design ODEEH X WELTBRANDT. In combining objects, which on first sight don’t belong together, Björn Weltbrandt Wallbaum creates a new context for the artworks. He enables the possibility to find artistic content in everyday objects. In bypassing the recognizability of art, his works bring another level of meaning into common objects.

The prints of the collaboration derive from the small scaled works on paper “little dirty paradises”. Single palms on lonely islands – what a beautiful phantasy! But wait, is it as heavenly as imagined? It also contains a certain feeling of being thrown back on itself, to be helpless without other beings. In this situation – as a palm on a lonely island – the palm has to develop strategies to cope with its solitude.

Therefore it can stand as a symbol for the ability to adapt. The title “little dirty paradises” refers on the artistic process as well as on different options of interpretation. In a quite small size, the pasty, briskly tossed oil paint on paper is neither bright nor dark. The pure colour tones are mixed with shades of grey, so to refer to the “dirty” element of “real” paradises. It feels like an optimistic approach to a difficult situation without denying deeper, sometimes even bluely feelings – embracing a wholesomeness in itself.

Björn Weltbrandt Wallbaum, born 1978, lives and works in Munich, Germany.

The collaboration ODEEH X WELTBRANDT was curated by Martina Tauber Fine Art. (Text: Dr. Verena Hertz, 2022)