CHRISTOF MASCHER (Hannover, 1979)."The Prestige, 2007.Oil on panel.With a label on the back from the Michael Janssen Gallery (Berlin).Sizes: 210 x 260 cm.Born in Hannover in 1979 Christof Mascher grew up in a newly unified Germany, in which an urban culture marked by graffiti and hip-hop was born, and started art school after postmodernism. In 2004 he began his academic training at the University of the Arts in Brunswick, where he studied under the guidance of Professor Walter Dahn among others. The latter was a great artistic influence on Mascher. During his years of study he developed a very personal visual language based on figurative painting, which he himself defines as an extension of his state of mind. That is why his artwork shows a dreamy, figurative aesthetic, realised in a variety of materials. The close observer finds a combination of pop culture, architectural and historical references in Mascher's work. His intuitive painting process functions as a visual diary, creating narrative as he works. A specific interest in abandoned and lost places sometimes gives his work an uncanny feel. His subjects vary widely, showing utopian landscapes or deserted houses, with the occasional dinosaur making an appearance.Christof Mascher's dream paintings evoke fantastical narratives that combine expressionistic marks with illustrative detail, contemporary iconography and foreboding architectural spaces. Influenced by "primitive" and "naive" art, the fantastic hybrids of Paul Klee and Hieronymus Bosch, and Emil Nolde's expressive use of colour, Mascher paints scenes that are extravagant, ambiguous spaces with fantastic flora and fauna, incomprehensible shadows and ethereal structures, as is the case with this 2007 work "the prestige".