At Green Hill Gallery, Berlin

John Silvis is a Brooklyn-based artist and curator. This will be his second one person show in Berlin featuring his latest wallpaper design covering the entire gallery. His multi-disciplinary practice over the last ten years centered on the automobile as a cultural signifier and has included large MDF objects, car part assemblages, stitched felt panels, photography and custom wallpaper. In each installation the work is adapted to the given architecture to create an immersive experience. 

In his most recent installation, Close Quarters, Silvis addresses digital technology as a significant contemporary cultural force. The wallpaper includes both diagonal grids and stacks of digital device packaging silhouettes filled with images of bodies and flowers. These shapes assume a cautionary stance to new forms of communication that seem to promise intimacy and transcendence. The albeit digital presence of the black and white figures are truncated and cropped to fit the digital outlines is contrasted to the warmth of colorful flowers standing in for various aspects of human affection. 

Silvis’ design of stacked and scattered forms underscores the attraction and simultaneous aversion to a fragmented figure and invites the viewer to further reflection on the value of human relationships.