André Butzer

André Butzer (1973) is one of the most important painters on the contemporary German scene. He became well-known in the mid-1990s with his paintings, which borrowed from the codes of cartoons, with grotesquely shaped figures. A style that he himself describes as science-fiction expressionist. Indeed, he even defines the environment from which his characters come and imagines Nasaheim, a city made up of Nasa and Anaheim, the headquarters of Disneyland.

Far from confining his work to this already accomplished universe, Butzer's painting echoes a double conflict, of the German past, particularly Nazism, and of exacerbated capitalism against the backdrop of the omnipresence of entertainment in a disenchanted Germany.

Butzer refers to the expressionism of the 1910s to 1930s - he is notably inspired by Edvard Munch, whom he often quotes in his work - as well as to the neo-expressionism and new-fauves of the 1980s. Moreover, the impact and the application of paint to the canvas directly from the tube became the quasi-signature of Butzer, who also defined himself as a colorist.