Tintype presents Together for Now, Jost Münster’s first solo show with the gallery. Jost Münster’s paintings and installations in wood, paint and paper experiment with colour and the painted surface to create a series of works that explore the reaches of representation.

His work spans and connects painting and sculpture; one of a generation of artists such as Paul Lee, Ian Pedigo, Guillermo Mora, Anna-Bella Papp and Jim Lee who push, pull apart, extend, and test the boundaries of what a painting can be.

Münster’s foremost concern is the ‘how’ of making work: how to create the illusion of space, how much or how little is needed to sustain the space that a work frames.

Layering has always been a significant element and way of working for Münster. In 2013 he has been painting over older works, their surfaces worked afresh but retaining glimpses and small clues of what used to be. This accentuates a defining preoccupation – the relationship between foreground and background “like a conversation between them”. Münster creates this dialectic through counterposing positive and negative. He never works from photographs, but the heightened shapes and mysterious contrasts of a photographic negative inform his practice, “using dark to make the colour jump”.

Working from his urban surroundings, Münster strips away pictorial detail, flattens and collages surfaces with abstract, mosaic-like colour swatches and backgrounds. A superb colourist, his work offers a playful and subtle figuration.

About the artist:

Jost Münster was born in Ulm, Germany, lives and works in London. He studied at Stuttgart Fine Art Academy and Goldsmiths. Recent selected shows include: Limber – spatial painting practices, co-curated by Münster & Cherry Smyth, Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury & Grandes Galleries de L’ESADHaR, Rouen, France, 2013; Dopellegänger, Victory Gallery, Portland, US; Crazee Golf, Tintype, London, 2012: Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 2012; A Sort of Night to the Mind, Artary Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany, 2011; Mostyn Open 2011, Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno, Wales; MARGINI - Arte Contemporanea, Massa, Italy, 2011; Polemically Small, Charlie Smith Gallery, London, 2011; Polemically Small (The Future can wait), The Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, 2011; Polemically Small, Garboushian Gallery, Los Angeles, 2011; Ground Control, Museum 52, London 2010; Hulahoop, 401contemporary/ London projects, London, 2010; John Moores 26, Liverpool Biennial, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2010; Das vertraute Unvertraute, Wuerttembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, 2010; Urban Origami, PM Gallery and House, London, 2010; Mexican Blanket, Museum 52, London, 2010.

-Tintype Contemporary Art

Image: © Jost Münster