In an age of fast-changing technologies offering numerous ways of generating images Elias
Wessel challenges the conventional definition of a painting: he creates his paintings without
resorting to traditional painting techniques and eschews classical genres. The artist's
abstract paintings - which in many ways show connections to painterly practices - are in fact
made up of photographs and digital material. Wessel for example takes photos of smartphone
displays to produce monumental abstract compositions from the fingerprints left behind on them.
He also documents his scrolling behavior on social media platforms by using long-time exposure
to superimpose accessed profiles and their contents: the result are visual and decontextualized
structures. His other works present painterly-looking details of damaged displays: where else
in the digital world can we experience such a close relationship with the canvas? Above all
the quality of Elias Wessel's working method lies in the way he links the fundamental
discourses in the history of photography with the latest technology and current social debates.
In so doing he skillfully observes and questions the social consequences and instruments of
digitalization.
