Opening Reception: Friday October 17, 6-8 pm

Mitchell-Innes & Nash announces an exhibition of new oil paintings by Berlin-based painter Axel Geis, on view in the Chelsea gallery from October 17 – November 22, 2008. The exhibition will be the artist's first solo show in the United States.

Geis's paintings feature figures set in ambiguous locations and uncertain time periods. Although he often uses images from films as points of departure, the artist pulls subjects from their specific contexts and sets them against seemingly unfinished backdrops. The figures appear to float on the picture plane amid visible brushstrokes in muted or earthy tones. While engaging with masters such as El Greco, Velázquez, Goya and Manet, the artist nonetheless brings a freshness to the genre of history painting and, above all, makes his own contemporary commentary.

Axel Geis was born in 1970 in Limburg, Germany, and currently lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe and the Akademie für Bildende Künste Mainz in Germany. This year he has been the focus of a major solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Mannheim in Germany, and his work is currently included in the exhibition Euro-Centric Part 1: New European Art from the Rubell Family Collection in Miami.

In conjunction with the New York exhibition, Mitchell-Innes & Nash has produced a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an essay by art historian Mark Gisbourne, author of the 2007 book Berlin Art Now (Abrams).