Gehard Demetz – Desmond Lazaro

»IDENTITIES« – a dual exhibition featuring scultptures by GEHARD DEMETZ and paintings by DESMOND LAZARO.

Tradition is not born out of stagnation. It is kept alive only through challenge. Desmond Lazaro and Gehard Demetz are examples of artists who dared departing from tradition, in painting and in sculpture.

Demetz' wooden child figures carry everyday objects which the artist imbues with symbolic meaning. Lazaro's early works isolate everyday objects and scenes, presenting them in all richness of detail.

A deep understanding of their medium and true knowledge of art and craft traditions are characteristic of both artists' work. For both, a spiritually rooted tradition is the starting point for the formulation of a contemporary, secular language in art. It is a means for one to express disbelief at his own Christian culture and the result for the other of a life-long search for his roots.

The painter traces family stories of migrants who settled in Cambridge in poetically subtle and detailed tableaux. Lazaro, who grew up in England, does so from his own experience. His ancestors, of Indian origin, have been migrating for generations.

Demetz uses the unknown to raise questions about migration, its consequences for people, culture and identity from the perspective of an observer when merging his child figures with Far Eastern iconographies. His sculptures reveal a masterly technique with which he transfers the softness and suppleness of moulding into hard wood and amalgamates two contrary formal languages into an unsettling symbiosis.

The interplay between recent and...

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Tradition is not born out of stagnation. It is kept alive only through challenge. Desmond Lazaro and Gehard Demetz are examples of artists who dared departing from tradition, in painting and in sculpture.

Demetz' wooden child figures carry everyday objects which the artist imbues with symbolic meaning. Lazaro's early works isolate everyday objects and scenes, presenting them in all richness of detail.

A deep understanding of their medium and true knowledge of art and craft traditions are characteristic of both artists' work. For both, a spiritually rooted tradition is the starting point for the formulation of a contemporary, secular language in art. It is a means for one to express disbelief at his own Christian culture and the result for the other of a life-long search for his roots.

The painter traces family stories of migrants who settled in Cambridge in poetically subtle and detailed tableaux. Lazaro, who grew up in England, does so from his own experience. His ancestors, of Indian origin, have been migrating for generations.

Demetz uses the unknown to raise questions about migration, its consequences for people, culture and identity from the perspective of an observer when merging his child figures with Far Eastern iconographies. His sculptures reveal a masterly technique with which he transfers the softness and suppleness of moulding into hard wood and amalgamates two contrary formal languages into an unsettling symbiosis.

The interplay between recent and hitherto familiar works by each artist enriches this juxtaposition of two unconventional and captivating artistic positions.

Gehard Demetz, Desmond Lazaro