Escapism and self-dissolution in all its divergent facets are central themes in Dirk Lange's work. His drawings and Collages feature human figures seemingly emerging from a multitude of stacked ornaments and designs. The onlooker never can make eye contact with these - often - faceless beings. Their presence oscillates between the lifelessness of a piece of jewelry, of a trophy, or of a specimen from the laboratory. This lifelessness emanates an almost religious distance and an ambivalent power and autonomy.
Lange's technique is derived from and influenced by scientific illustrations, by techniques used in altar depictions, costume design, as well as by techniques used in weaving. His subjects seem to be lost in outer space and in their own universes. They become surfaces, literally and abstractly, due to their quality of depicting over the top daydreams, extreme narcissism and gnostic world denial.
The collages, created for this exhibition in Texas, show portraits that remind us of icons or portraits of mummies from Fajum. The depicted images dissolve in a grotesque cosmos, duplicate themselves, melt into one another, and constantly change in texture. They are in limbo where opposites like alive/dead, masculine/feminine, solid/fluid seem not to exist.