André Butzer’s sci-fi expressionism reckons with the horrors of the past

German-born artist Andre Butzer first began painting when he was 20, developing his distinct depictions of cartoonish biomorphic figures set in boldly coloured, dreamlike landscapes. With a varied list of influences, such as Walt Disney, Edvard Munch, Friedrich Hölderlin and Henry Ford, his work combines elements of European expressionism and American pop culture, although he would describe his work as “science fiction expressionism”.

A new exhibition at Duarte Sequeira Gallery HQ in Portugal brings together five monumental artworks by Butzer. Christan Malycha, the director of the André Butzer Archive, explains the artist’s desire to become more than a painter creating work in an empty void. “He felt the need to move through the whole 20th century. Not only art history, but political history and societal issues,” Malycha tells Dazed. “Particularly from a German point of view, he felt that he should not only address the positive issues. If you take the German history of the National Socialist Party [the Nazi Party] of the Third Reich, there are very troublesome and very devastating things that happened, and these need to be addressed in the painting as well.”

In this current exhibition, his work focuses on the recurring appearance of “the woman” – a motif that figures throughout his artworks. As Malycha explains, her presence within these works maps the journey of Butzer’s work, functioning as a symbol of hope and life. The reality in which the figure of the woman resides, as Malycha explains, “has no physical reality. It’s about frequency”. It is then through this recurring presence that a bridge is created between the real and the imagined. She mediates the vast realities of Butzer’s work and it’s there where we find a connection to his utopian vision. “It’s music, like a tone. It comes and it goes,” Malycha reflects.

At first glimpse, Butzer’s work depicts this whimsical reality through its vibrant colours and nostalgic forms. It is in the brightness of his work that the darker realities of the human condition can thus be exposed. “Even if the painting appears bright and colourful or confident and positive, there is always the second side we need to be aware of, particularly from the German point – or even, the global perspective,” Malycha says. “The light always brings the dark. Or the darkness needs to be countered by the light.”

Andre Butzer’s solo exhibition is running from July 15 until September 16 2023 at Duarte Sequeira Gallery HQ in Braga, Portugal.

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