KETELEER GALLERY is very pleased to announce its 2nd solo exhibition of American artist David Lynch. Man in the Rain will focus on the artist’s graphic oeuvre and recent drawings. The show will be expanded to both gallery spaces, with the NEXT DOOR space focusing on photographic works and a special dedicated library. By doing so, we want to showcase David Lynch’s impressive versatility. Throughout his richly filled career he experimented with nearly every possible medium. Thanks to his unparalleled style, David Lynch can be considered as one of the most enigmatic American post-war artists.

The exhibition opens with a vast selection of David Lynch’s graphic works: 24 lithographs and 4 woodcuts made between 2007-2014 at the world-renowned Item éditions in Paris. David Lynch’s love for experimentation is beautifully illustrated here. Every lithograph is constructed the same way he constructs his drawings and movies: as short films or scenes from a bigger story. The titles of the works often become part of the work, they’re scratched into the works or translated into abstract images. In nearly every work image and language are combined to compliment and reinforce each other, generating an even greater sense of mystery.

The same narrative techniques are used in the 13 exhibited aquarelles on paper. At first sight it appears we’re  entering a dark and gloomy world, but Lynch’s characteristic sense of humour is never far behind. The drawings have a childlike and naive quality to them. They show us only fragments. They’re both elusive and seductive. David Lynch is always autobiographically inspired in an unparalleled way. As fragments of dreams and meditations get a second life in his visually expressive works (movies, paintings, drawings, etc.), these snippets and vague memories develop into a whole new story. By exposing himself in this way a unique tension is created with the audience, a tension which is reminiscent of the eeriness of his films, but which is perhaps even more prominent in his more intimate visual artworks.

In our NEXT DOOR space 15 photographic works will be shown including his digital manipulations, Nudes series, Flowers and Factory Photographs. A new book on David Lynch’s Nudes was recently published by Fondation Cartier of which 4 will be shown in this exhibition.

David Lynch (born in Missoula, Montana, USA, in 1946) studied painting at the Boston Museum School and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). During his time at PAFA he envisioned making his first ‘moving painting’ titled “Six Men Getting Sick”. It was because of this that David Lynch got in touch with filmmaking.

David Lynch has already been the topic of great international exhibitions like his current and most extensive retrospective ever in Europe, ‘Someone is in my House’ at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, including the publication of a richly illustrated catalogue, published by Hannibal and Prestel. Other major exhibitions were organised at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain (Paris), Musée d’Orsay (Paris), GL Strand (Copenhagen), Leo Castelli Gallery (New York), Garage Center for Contemporary Culture (Moscow), Jack Tilton Gallery (New York), Kayne Griffin Corcoran, (Los Angeles), Galerie Karl Pfefferle (Munich) and Item Gallery (Paris).