Jan Paul Evers
Jan Paul Evers
In Jan Paul Evers’ oeuvre, photography as “impression of reality” is subversively dissolved. His pictures neither document nor stage a “reality” that unfolds before the camera’s lens. The starting point is his digital image archive of found motifs and motifs of his own, which are first processed with Photoshop, printed out and then photographed analogously. The decisive moment in Jan Paul Evers’ work process takes place in the darkroom, where the final motif is “worked out” during the factual image formation with templates using analog processing methods such as dodging, masking, post-exposure, or gradation splitting. This “sculptural handling” of photography produces a unique copy instead of a “reproduction” of reality. In this sense, Jan Paul Evers’ works show an “image genesis” in which documentation and abstraction, visible surface and hidden code, past and present collaps into each other. The art historian Florian Ebner aptly writes: “The pleasure taken in the photographic material, a bit of punk and a very precise creative gaze come together in Jan Paul Evers’ work and start dancing.”
Jan Paul Evers (DE, 1982) lives and works in Cologne. He was awarded the „Große Hans-Purrmann-Preis der Stadt Speyer“. His works are part of museum collections such as Museum Folkwang, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Fotomuseum Winterthur and the Art Collection of the Federal Estate of Germany. He is currently part of the group exhibition “n+1. Mehr als ein Bild” at the DZ BANK Kunststiftung, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Jan Paul Evers’ works have been shown in solo exhibitions at Villa Stuck, Munich, and Kunsthalle Lingen, as well as in group exhibitions such as “Photography to the Test of Abstraction” at Frac Normandie Rouen (FR); “Nullpunkt der Orientierung. Fotografie als Verortung im Raum” at the Art Foyer DZ Bank, Frankfurt am Main; “Germany is no Island. Art Collection of the Federal Estate of Germany” at Bundeskunsthalle Bonn; “Black & White. From Dürer to Eliasson” at Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf; and “so wie wir sind” at Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen, Germany. He also participated in recent group exhibitions such as “It’s the 21st Century that Expects Everything from You” at Haunt, Berlin, and “Kybernetik. Vernetzte Systeme” at the DZ Bank Art Foundation, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
