JOHANN ALEXIS – breather.

With breather., Johann Alexis developed an exhibition project that conceptualizes space as a resonating body for social, psychological, and ecological conditions. In a time of constant acceleration and collective exhaustion, breather. sees itself as an artistic intervention – an invitation to pause, to self-awareness, and to shift perspectives.

Johann Alexis’s work operates at the interface between abstraction and figuration. In cross-media works – painting, sculpture, installation, and objets trouvés – he combines subtle color spaces with a precise formal language. His compositions combine aesthetic clarity with emotional density. Central to this is the idea of ​​”inner architecture”: spaces that are not only entered but also experienced – as places of collective reflection and individual regeneration.

For breather., the artist draws on regional materials, forms, or narrative fragments to create a space for dialogue. The exhibition aims not only to display works, but to create atmospheres – states in which body, consciousness, and space relate to one another in new ways. This is about more than just deceleration: breather. sees itself as an artistic-philosophical proposal to create a gap in the midst of everyday life – a space for fragility, stillness, and new energy.

At the same time, in breather., Johann Alexis raises fundamental questions about the position of humans within the fabric of nature and the cosmos. His works reflect an existential quest: How do we behave in a world whose planetary boundaries we are increasingly transgressing? How does our self-image change in the face of the complexity of biological, social, and universal interrelationships? His visual worlds do not create solutions, but rather spaces of possibility – fragile equilibria between inner experience and the outer world. breather. directs the gaze away from the ego and toward connection: to the landscape, to the material, to the other.

In his formal language and post-conceptual depth, Johann Alexis stands in the tradition of Color Field painting and Hard Edge painting of the 1950s and 60s. At the same time, he updates the central concerns of these movements: the search for contemplation through color, surface, and form. In this context, references to the meditative reduction of Agnes Martin can also be recognized, whose works quietly yet powerfully open spaces for spiritual tranquility. Likewise, his color-transparent, atmospherically charged compositions draw on Helen Frankenthaler’s sensitivity to color and surface—an understanding of painting that connects body, emotion, and landscape. His concern is not with references to the past, but with further development—toward an art that embraces contemporary psychological and social realities. Elements of Land Art, Minimalism, and Symbolism interweave in his work to create an aesthetic that is communicated less through narrative than through atmosphere and experience.

His works are reminiscent of the meditative qualities of Mark Rothko, the structural clarity of Ellsworth Kelly, the quiet precision of Agnes Martin, and the physical and sensual color language of Helen Frankenthaler—and yet, they create unique, contemporary pictorial spaces: hybrid, sensitively placed surfaces that are both artistic expression and mental landscapes.

The project raises important questions: What spaces do we need today—beyond efficiency and sensory overload? How can art become not only aesthetically but also existentially effective?

With breather., Johann Alexis delivers a poetic and political contribution to the current debate about mental health, collective resilience, and the future of art as a meaningful experiential space.