Romanian-born artists Gert and Uwe Tobias, twin brothers, command international attention for their surrealist and carnivalesque prints, drawings, collages, engravings and sculptures. While their traditional use of folk art—woodcuts, embroidery and lace— evokes cultural nostalgia, their contemporary aesthetic refers and renews Geometric Abstraction. Colourful puppets, fantastic birds and industrially produced objects evolve in an imaginary world where the importance of ornament is constantly questioned. Gert and Uwe Tobias’ eerie anthropomorphic figures seem to be suspended in mid-air without hierarchy, a feeling enhanced by the collage technique.
Born in Braşov in 1973, the brothers moved to Germany in 1985 and studied at the College of Fine Arts in Brunswick. The artists have held several solo exhibitions in Europe and America including FRAC Auvergne in Clermont-Ferrand, Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Art in The Hague, Kunstmuseum in Bonn, and Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna to name a few. In the United States, their major personal exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art in New York and UCLA Hammer Museum of Art in Los Angeles. Most recently in 2014, the artists exhibited at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Belgium. The artists won the Cologne Fine Art Prize by the Federal Association of German Galleries in 2007. They have lived and worked in Cologne since 2002.