"Looking backward and forward", Andreas Floris, Sparkasse Fürth, Fürth, Bavaria,

12.11. - 11.12.2009

[Andreas Floris] 

Fürther Nachrichten, 19.11.2009, ANNE PETERS

A humorous road movie about Miss Liberty's country

Art-Agency Hammond showcases works by cartoonist and illustrator Andreas Floris from Heroldsberg in the Sparkasse

The artist has a fast brushstroke. That is how Andreas Floris was able to produce 30 pictures, two per day, while he was on holiday in Ireland in 2006, but only because he had so little space. Otherwise it would have been more.

The result, atmospheric marine coloured pictures painted in acrylic, which now can be admired at the Sparkasse in the Maxstraße. Also on show, brought just as fast on paper, are mixed-media works in comic-style dealing with the USA. There, the spirit of freedom in form of Miss Liberty escapes from a can of Cola, Mickey Mouse is a corpulent businessman and Miss Piggy is munching burgers.

"In 1982 and 1984, I was in the United States and travelled around 15,000 Kilometres per trip. It was then that the ideas of the pictures came to me," says Floris. This explains why the pictures have something of a road movie.

"Typical", of course, completely stereotyped Americans run their dogs, looking suspiciously similar to their owner, a frankly Humphrey Bogart is sitting in "Rick's Coffee Shop", a trucker is racing through the desert, a boxer takes a KO punch for 500,000 Dollar, Wall Street is supernaturally powerful - everything that could spontaneously come to ones mind thinking about the land of endless opportunity is shown. Additionally a "giant" octopus is engulfing the world.

Surely, this can’t be taken too seriously but has because of its technical finesse a lot of biting humour. No wonder, he is a press cartoonist, illustrator and caricaturist. Therefore his evening view of Nuremberg is a special one. The night in the Noris is characterised by flying bats.

Ironically detached style

The snapshots that Floris puts on paper so seemingly easily, jump skilfully between the journalistic work of topical political allusions on the one hand and perceptions of the psychological sector on the other. This results in an ironically detached style capturing the essence with limited contours and knows how to expose the truth.

Floris cuts out the bitter and evil, he does not need to provoke. Instead, some look pleasantly unfinished, with the motto: The spontaneous comes more from the head than from the hand. And this is ultimately a sign of quality. If the thought is clearly evident, then no more is necessary. That’s called brought to the point. Worth seeing.