Mathias Vef

I’m interested in extraordinary people at the edge or beyond the mainstream, people who are experimental with their selves and their body, those who see both not as given, but as something that is to be moulded and formed, those who see hacking themselves as a survival strategy
those who are born liquid.

They hack their body and I use the samples they provide for my work. I take photos and video of people with body modifications, with tattoos, but also trans people, and people who work with their body, from performance artists or ballet dancers to sex workers. With the samples and pieces I create portraits, collages or fresco like abstract mythical scenes. My work has a critical psychedelic component, I also hack some images chemically through a dissolvent that is also a psychoactive molecule, that destroys the pigments of the prints.

To me the people I work with speak about the reality, the now and with my work I want that too. The now is disturbing, dystopian and surreal. My images seem to be, too, but I want to fascinate about that part of the now.
Because I think we need to hack the concepts and common narratives about being and life and identity to survive the dystopian now. I want to hack the narratives in your headsp...

Royal College of Art, London
2011-2013

Mediadesign University of
Applied Arts, Berlin
1999 – 2001

Humboldt University, Berlin
Goethe University, Frankfurt
Biology
1996-1997

2020 G-Spot
The Ballery, Berlin
2019 Fluid
Espacio Gallery London
2019 The Void
Museum Frider Burda
Salon Berlin
2018 During
Berlin
2018 On G / Non G
Ibiza
2017 Instinct#4
Berlin
2017 Tribe17
London
2017 Instinct#3
Berlin
2016 Tribe16
London
2016 Galeries Lafayette
Berlin (Solo Show)
2016 Studio Residency
Living Bauhaus, Berlin
2015 ID
Display Gallery, London
2015 Syncretics
Galerie 3punts
Berlin (Solo Show)
2014 I Loved You, Art Basel Edition
Miami Beach
2014 Myth & Mythology
Menier Gallery, London
2014 Hockney Gallery
London
2014 Temporary Turn
London (Solo Show)
2014 Candid Art Trust
London
2013 Gallery KA14
Berlin
2013 F* German
London, Manchester, Birming-
ham (Solo Show)
2013 Royal College of Art
London
2012 Royal College of Art, GRIST
London
2011 Skeletor Saves
New York
2009 Berlin Days
Brüssel
2009 Hoffest des Regierenden
Bürgermeisters von Berlin
2009 Temporäre Kunsthalle
Berlin
2009 Leslie/Lohman Art Foundation
New York
2008 Create Berlin,
Dray Walk Gallery
London
2007 D-Construct, Kleist-1
Berlin (Solo Show)
2004 Digitally Dehanced
Berlin (Solo Show)
2001 Inscape Outscape Escape
Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala
Lumpur (Solo Show)
2001 Inscape Outscape Escape...