Cart
Backstage Disaster is the latest collection of paintings by Paul Neberra. This series is an exploration of the relationship between a painter and his own art, a journey behind the scenes.
Join our preview list for early access to the online catalogue.
Opening reception: Saturday, April 1st, 6 - 9pm. Drinks will be provided by our friends at Jetty Road Brewery and Malocchio.
This exhibition will run from April 2nd - April 23rd and will coincide with Ronit Baranga's Intimacy, David Lee Pereira's Liminal Spaces and Ed Binkley's Wondrous Strange and Familiar.
Neberra notes, “It was just incredible, that feeling of starting a drawing when I was five years old. That moment was mine, mine alone! It was my sanctuary, my safe place, where a cocktail of my weird imagination mixed with my fears could find a way to materialize.”
The first sensations are the most powerful and unrepeatable, and as time goes by, everything becomes a brief mirage of what was and will never be again. Neberra speculates that perhaps one of the main reasons he paints is the search for that feeling, the comfort that surrounded him during hours when he lost himself.
In his view, when paintings become objects, they lose their essence and produce a toxicity that poisons the primordial being. How is it possible for things to change, to suffer terrible mutations that transfigure the truth?
It takes a hero, several heroes, to fight the mutants, to rediscover the most precious part of the artistic process. This combat occurs behind the scenes, the stage nobody sees or understands because they don't feel it. And so the hero waits patiently in his secret cave, in his emotional bunker, for the ideal moment to take action.
The artist needs to find his own heroes again; even if this process is excruciating, nothing is more genuine than an absolute disaster. Will the hero be guided by an unnatural force or be deceived by some mythological creature? How can the idea be shaped into a precious stone without repeating itself? What's the fun of having many diamonds when they all look identical?
Paul Neberra is from Mainz, Germany, where he spent part of his childhood before moving with his family to Portugal. He earned a degree graphic design and found work doing graphic design and illustration; he then spent several years teaching graphic software, always creating illustrations, mostly digitally. About 10 years ago, he decided to devote himself entirely to painting.
While his style is classic, the imagery he employs has more contemporary influences, such as movies and televisions shows of the 1950s, 1960s and 1980s. The mood can be melancholic, with an element of sarcasm.
Neberra’s work has been featured in various art magazines, including Hey, Heavy Metal Magazine and Catapult, and has been shown in England, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Germany the United States and Australia.