Sebastian Rug

For the first time, Museum Folkwang is presenting Sebastian Rug’s drawings in a solo show in a Museum. Sebastian Rug belongs to a younger generation of artists who in their work have devoted themselves solely to drawing. For ten years he has been producing works that fascinate beholders on account of their small-scale structures.

He does not produce his drawings using a previously determined design; they evolve from a creative process. The only thing determined at the start of his work is the basic graphic element from which the respective drawing is composed. Subsequently, the drawing gradually takes shape line by line until a delicate system emerges, often comprising several levels and which evokes associations, say of mesh structures, or could be read as an abstract composition of lines. The technique is timeconsuming and consequently he only produces a few drawings a year. Rug concentrates on the A4 paper format and pencils are his chosen tool.

The exhibition showcases a selection of some 45 drawings from the years 2005 to 2013, which were largely made available by private collectors. Also on view for the first time are the nine etchings produced between 2002 and 2004 which played a key role in the genesis of his drawings. Rug created the etchings as part of his final project during his studies. The etchings were never conceived as prints for circulation in the classic sense, but rather served the young artist, who studied from 1996 to 2004 in Dresden and Leipzig, as a technique that he subsequently transferred to the medium of drawing.

Back in 2008, Sebastian Rug took part in the group exhibition Drawing as Process at Museum Folkwang. In the following years he mastered the balancing act of finding new forms of expression within the narrowly defined framework of his artistic approach, continuing to advance his work in a convincing manner.
Following its presentation in Essen, the show Sebastian Rug – Seeing in Drawing will travel to the Leonhardi-Museum in Dresden.

The accompanying catalogue in German and English is being published by Edition Folkwang/Steidl.