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Since the 1980s, Hans-Jörg Mayer (* 1955 in Singen, lives in Berlin) has been working on a body of work that is as diverse as it is rigorous. It originated in Munich at a time when late Pop Art was beautifully fraying into Punk. His selection of motifs does not follow a worn-out canon of meaning and remains deliberately questionable. In typefaces and large, expressive canvases, or portrait series of people, beings, flowers, disco balls, or stones, Mayer has always expressed both the autonomous and the heteronomous. His subject matter is painting as such, as well as its unbroken potential for human existence, alone and in society.
With his new paintings on paper, GABI, Hans-Jörg Mayer dedicates himself to the butterfly as a symbol of transformation, transience, and beauty. On large-format sheets, intensely colored wings unfold, oscillating between precise form and free gesture. Mayer draws on a long pictorial tradition – from 18th-century natural history details to Romantic symbolism and pop culture, in which the butterfly is omnipresent. In his works, he interweaves these levels, transforming the familiar motif into a contemporary pictorial symbol.
Hans-Jörg Mayer’s work is exhibited internationally. His works are held by the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the mumok in Vienna, the Grässlin Collection in St. Georgen, the Brandhorst Collection in Munich, and the Pat and Juan Vergez Collection in Buenos Aires, among others.
