[LONDON] SITTING IN A HOLE THAT HAS THE SHAPE OF A FRIGHTENED CAT: MARKUS VATER

Union Gallery is pleased to announce Sitting in a Hole that has the Shape of a Frightened Cat, Markus Vater's first exhibition with the gallery.

“What was the first person‘s biggest fear?“

Each age has it’s own anxieties, desires and possibilities. Markus Vater‘s work attempts to locate these anxieties, desires and possibilities in our modern age. While our public spaces are becoming more and more privatised, we are seeing this happen within our inner spaces.

The virtual has created tools of psycho invasion and control. Sitting in a Hole that has the Shape of a Frightened Cat poetically analyses our privatised psycho locations and by doing so hopes to unravel and resist the processes at work. The reality, which is present in his work, is rich, infantile, full of wonder and surprising connections, but also complex and fragile.

Drawings, animations and paintings form a soulful and strange installation in the gallery.

Markus Vater, b. 1970 in Düsseldorf, studied at the Kunstakademie in Münster and Düsseldorf and at the Royal College in London, where he graduated in 2000. Vater has exhibited globally and holds work in numerous collections, which include but are not limited to, the Deutsche Bank Collection, Sammlung Falkenberg in Hamburg, Grafischen Sammlung of the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. Beyond his practice Vater also taught at the Royal College of Art in London and has been a Guest Professor at the HfbK in Hamburg and at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste Karlsruhe.

Markus Vater lives and works in London and Karlsruhe.