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Pascal Sender
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​© Pascal Sender, Selfportrait, 2020,  200 x 145 cm,
oil on canvas, Saatchi Yates
“I try to actually make a bridge, a bridge for the young and the old.”
– Pascal Sender

painting and AR

digital perspective of a painting

figures on phones

hybrid works

new media artist

Contemporary Life

effervescent energy

art that has to be experienced

the modern world 

the need to capture and categorise

holding the viewers focussed in the now

connecting generations

engaging the viewer

letting people in

interactive moments

“Your idea of an artist, or let´s say the society at the moment, has an idea of a artist, that doesn´t match my idea.” – Sender, 2021

 

Sender studied at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Peter Doig before moving to London to study at the Royal Academy School. Sender paints complex studies of the human figure and everyday scenes of contemporary living – a receptionist on her phone, an oiled-up bodybuilder posing for a selfie, a man waiting for a bus. Besides being masterful paintings, Sender has created an innovation so that the pictures can be viewed in Augmented Reality. He has hand coded an app, so that when viewing his paintings through your phone camera, another digital perspective is revealed. The paintings jump off the canvas appearing as three-dimensional forms, his characters moving and interacting with the viewer. This breakthrough in new media art presents a unique reflection of modern life. (Smith, 2020)

(1:20 – 1:54) “There is a video work that is actually where I found the formular for myself. I was already using a projector to make a painting, and then I realised, why not leave in the projection? Why not work with the projection as an actual layer, and I really balanced this out. I felt like oh wow, it comes together, it is a hybrid now, and the painting is not finished without the projection, the projection is not finished without the painting, and both together merge so well, that it is also, when you see it, not a question. (…) I can add a digital layer to a painting and it´s still a painting.”

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(2:00 – 2:04) “I am really interested in making art not just for the art world, or for the art interested. I want to make art for everybody.”

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(2:43 – 3:46) “I try to actually make a bridge, a bridge for the young and the old. Because these are two levels of engagement where I really saw that in the gallery happening the people just came and looked at the painting. And then the son or the daughter had the phone in their hand and they were looking through the phone at the painting because it was natural or they wanted that. I find it super interesting to give entry points, and often I have the feeling it´s really hard to make an entry point, to let people in. It´s maybe the key for me or where my interest lies, and the app then you can see it as an add-on, but a kid would not see it as an add-on, they would actually see the work in that moment, because they can then play with it. They want an interactive moment, they want to engage with it with clicking, and something happens, and it changed. And an older generation maybe exactly doesn´t want that. I find it super interesting to make a bridge between these two areas, or the two layers of how people consume art.”

In the Studio
with Pascal Sender

Interview by Ieva Jasinskaite

(About the concept behind the exhibition)

"For a long time now I have been working on a series of paintings with figures on phones. Whilst painting the figures I taught myself how to add a digital layer of 3d paint on top. I did this by learning how to create an app from scratch myself by experimenting with various tests on the catalogue. This new skill took roughly two years to master, with a lot of tutorials for it to be useable and naturally placed. When I got the chance to work on the gallery’s inaugural show in these strange new times, this increased my drive to make the works come alive digitally. The end result is of course the works in the exhibition, which bring together the two layered artwork presented in a final succinct form."

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(Augmented Reality and being defining as a new media artist)

"I think I mostly found pleasure again in creating models in VR but I learned it with repeating tutorials or randomly clicking. I believe I can now paint in 3d with time integrated! Maybe I am now considered a new media artist, although I don’t want to categorise or limit myself. I do feel addicted to the options CGI brings you nowadays."

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(Theme of the works)

"Contemporary Life as I am living it with all its components!"

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(Studio routine)

"I’ll admit, I am not very organised, especially with my digital material. I split my day with working on the digital aspect for the first half of the day until I am ready to use my whole body to move around and paint. Sometimes in the evening I try out new tutorials to learn a new modelling skill."

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Selfie-W
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Bet 7
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Artist working in the studio
Raven Smith about
Senders Work
at Saatchi Yates

“In a gallery landscape of pin-drop silent rooms, the chinking of champagne, and the teetering of the chattering classes, Sender works are anything but quiet. He presents a refreshing and visually enthusiastic commentary on all that we see and hear. Each work demands your full attention. A flat canvas isn’t enough to contain Sender’s effervescent energy. His work never settles, it’s a movable feast of dancing lines, percussive and unapologetic. It can’t be passively viewed, it has to be experienced. These days, the information superhighway, with its infinite fleeting moments, speeds past us as we passively half engage. Like bad kitchen roll, we somehow stopped being able to absorb, preferring the definitive record of an iPhone photograph to the data allowance of our own brains. We shoot to remember, rewarding ourselves with a digital record of having been somewhere or experienced something. But these snapped memories flood our feeds, the mass of content diluting and devaluing each image. Sender questions the modern world and our need to capture and categorise. How our media’s delivered into manageable bitesize pieces and formatted to the oblongs of our phones. By using this exact format to enhance proceeding, Sender is commandeering our screens to keep us focussed on his work in the now. A rebellion against perpetual scroll and the desire to half-watch, to double screen.” (Smith, 2020)

Senders Work at Saatchi Yates

References

 

Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom (2021) Creative Heads: Pascal Sender. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq8aRRcaIY8 (Accessed: 08.11.22)

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Jasinskaite, I (2022) In the Studio with Pascal Sender. Available at: https://www.emergentmag.com/interviews/pascal-sender (Accessed: 08.11.22)

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Smith, R / galleriesnow (2020) Pascal Sender. Available at: https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/pascal-sender/ (Accessed: 08.11.22)

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