Tobias Pils — Happy Days

Galerie Eva Presenhuber is pleased to present Happy Days, the gallery’s seventh solo exhibition with the Austrian artist Tobias Pils. 

Happy Days

This exhibition consists of 2 Triptychs (Happy Days, A Projection), a family of eight paintings and one bronze.
It might be the most intimate thus far.

Being a body. 
Being part of a bigger body. A group, maybe. 
Vis a Vis.
Shared consciousness whilst being together. Whilst being apart.

Togetherness and Loneliness.
Being held and holding each other.
Being reflected and mirrored in the opposite.
If there is a distance (and there is a lot of it), it’s a distance from proximity.
I am Us.

It is about fragility, tenderness and vulnerability.
Some of these figures have faces without eyes, no mouth, no nose, etc.
A nobody who is somebody.
A blank surface for the viewer. For projection. 
A possibility to get rid of my own persona.
A possibility for the painter to get rid of my own persona.
The painting is just a painting.

The painting process (act of painting) is the ultimate transformation- the moment of the unpredictable.
Painting is time and dissolves the concept of time at once.
I must live through a whole life with a painting so that it can be born.
A found egg.

Tobias Pils, April 2024