Matthias Esch: Patterns that remember the body

“Order is painted on top of a storm.”

Heat under rule, eye in motion.

Stand close to a Matthias Esch painting and the geometry starts to breathe.

Grids tremble, diamonds wander, cubes catch light like fish scales.
Step back and the order asserts itself again.

It is a push and pull between heat and rule, a contract signed in red and revised in pearl.
The work reads like a slow strobe: structure, then undertow, then structure again.

Alt: Matthias Esch, close-up of geometric red cube pattern from Surrounding Structure series, oil and mother-of-pearl on linen, Berlin-based abstract painter. — **Matthias Esch:** *Surrounding Structure (Karte und Gebiet)*, oil, pen, and mother-of-pearl pigment on linen, 200 × 300 cm, 2022–2025. Image courtesy of the artist.

Exhibitions include Deranged Chanting at Kunstverein Brandenburg, Potsdam (2024), Map and Territory at Galerie Ernst Busche, Berlin (2023), and Cool Runnings in Berlin (2015).

Earlier projects were shown in the shop-window gallery SOX Berlin with the installation Like the Ocean Does, linking photographic imagery to his geometric paintings.

His work has been featured in the publication Soft Need 23 on William Burroughs and discussed in interviews with Horst und Edeltraut and Artevie Publishing.

Matthias Esch, Untitled work on paper, orange and yellow triangular grid pattern, geometric abstraction exploring system and repetition. — **Matthias Esch:** *Untitled*, pen and watercolor on paper, 24 × 32 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

Three moves, one surface.

Each painting unfolds in three moves: a stormy oil ground in reds and purples; a measured pastel grid scratched into the tack of paint; a final layer of white mixed with mother-of-pearl that fixes the pattern while letting the ground show through.

The surface reads orderly from afar and human up close: tiny strokes, imperfect “whites,” seams where the system leaks.

Matthias Esch, Describe Pain (A Prison, Dissolving), geometric red and violet cube pattern painting in oil, pen, and mother-of-pearl on linen, 200 × 130 cm, Berlin-based contemporary abstraction. — **Matthias Esch:** *Describe Pain (A Prison, Dissolving)*, oil, pen, and mother-of-pearl pigment on linen, 200 × 130 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

**Matthias Esch:** Left: *System Structure (I Can’t, Shifting, Half)*, 30 × 20 cm. Right: *Stuck Inside the Clouds (Symbol)*, oil, pen, and mother-of-pearl pigment on linen, 30 × 20 cm (framed). Images courtesy of the artist.

Matthias Esch, Map and Territory exhibition view II, abstract geometric paintings in red and blue tones on gallery walls, Berlin-based contemporary artist exploring structure and ornament. — **Matthias Esch:** *Map and Territory*, exhibition view II. Photo: Christian Liebermann. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ornament as carrier, not décor.

Esch’s vocabulary draws on archaic and everyday structures, zigzags, stars, circles, cubes; door ornaments; Roman mosaics and cosmatesque floor inlays.

**Matthias Esch:** Left: Detail of *System Structure (Leaking).* Right: surrounding structure (how does it feel, blu), oil and pen on linen 200x130cm, 2023. Images courtesy of the artist.

**Matthias Esch:** Left: *Studio Shot I.* Right: Portrait in studio. Photo: Marlene Zoe Burz. Images courtesy of the artist.

He distinguishes between structures that surround us and are based on some kind of reality like architecture, and systems we use to give order to life. Language, Ideology are examples for this.

Repetition is never pure; skips and glitches act as openings rather than errors, keeping the work alert and the viewer engaged.

Matthias Esch, artist book catalogue spread showing floor patterns and mosaic references, photo by Marlene Zoe Burz. — **Matthias Esch:** Catalogue view. Photo: Marlene Zoe Burz. Image courtesy of the artist.

Matthias Esch, catalogue cover with minimalist arrow drawings, artist publication design, photo by Marlene Zoe Burz. — **Matthias Esch:** Catalogue view I. Photo: Marlene Zoe Burz. Image courtesy of the artist.

Against purity, for the hand.

Unlike classic minimalism or op art, the signature is not evacuated.
The grid does not sterilize the ground; it tests it.

Matthias Esch, Cool Runnings exhibition view, large-scale abstract paintings with circular and star motifs, Berlin 2015. — **Matthias Esch:** *Cool Runnings*, exhibition view, Berlin, 2015. Photo: André Wunstorf. Image courtesy of the artist.

The paintings stage a persistent tension: instinct versus law, reality vs depiction, weather versus diagram. First layers in red behaves like climate, mother-of-pearl like a cooled skin laid over heat.

Matthias sculpture small on a pedestal part of a series, on view exhibition. — **Matthias Esch:** *Ruins (II)*, pewter, 15cm, 2025. Image courtesy of the artist.

**Matthias Esch:** Left: *Ruins III.* Right: *Ruins IV.* Photos: Tim Fedke. Images courtesy of the artist.

Language and its limitations, image and its depth.

Esch treats abstraction as a language that needs to be developed.

Semantics, the gap between sign and subject, and the old problem of words shaping vision sit in the background, yet the works never collapse into illustration.

Matthias Esch, Deranged Chanting installation setup, artist preparing abstract geometric paintings in exhibition space, 2024. — **Matthias Esch:** *Deranged Chanting*, installation setup, Kunstverein Brandenburg, Potsdam, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.

Matthias Esch, Deranged Chanting exhibition view II, 2024, exterior evening view of Kunstverein gallery with illuminated abstract paintings visible inside, photo by Michael Lüder. — **Matthias Esch:** *Deranged Chanting*, my solo show at Kunstverein Brandenburg, Potsdam. Exhibition view II, 2024. Photo: Michael Lüder. Image courtesy of the artist.

Titles and sub-groupings “surrounding structure,” “system structure,” “empty symbols,” “signifiers,” “symbol structures”, frame the practice as an evolving atlas rather than a linear series.

Matthias Esch holding what he calls the Sky Disc, bronze, 25 cm, — **Matthias Esch:** *Sky Disc*, bronze, 25 cm, 2014. Image courtesy of the artist.

Open order, human time.

The paintings refuse the false comfort of perfect order.
They show a world where systems are everywhere but porous, where meaning leaks and that leak is humane.