There is a risk that the title of Kristian Devantier’s second solo show at Galerie Mikael Andersen might lure in the hungry on false pretences. To keep the record straight it should be said that Devantier still prefers a brush over broth. So if you first and foremost dream of a good stew, you are bound to be disappointed. Devantier’s “Casserole” is made of show dishes only.

The exhibition consists of six large paintings and four of Devantier’s well known cactus figures. The new works represent a further development of Devantier characteristic expression from the extremely stylized towards the less controlled. The works bare the impress of the painterly process in a much higher extent than earlier. The bare canvas shows and rough brush strokes leap to the eye on the otherwise smooth surfaces

The characters are still there, without the facial expressions that would have made individuals of them. However, they do not mime the painter’s often humoristic titles in the same degree as earlier. Devantier’s interest in the poetic and simple seems to have been displaced in favour of an investigation of the meeting and overlap of figures and coloured surfaces, which seems to disturb the immediate clearness of the works. The stories are still there however, but maybe only as a tool of a fundamental painterly interest in the abstract qualities in both everyday life and the figurative.

Devantier gets his ingredients from films, books, music and life in general. The impressions are the starting point. The everyday is chopped, blanched, mashed and gently placed on the canvas. It seems safe to say that no one else cooks like Kristian Devantier. Enjoy!