On the road

On the road, the second solo show by painter Andreas Silbermann at Galerie Poll, features works from 2023 through 2025.

Silbermann chooses deliberately unspectacular subjects for his oil paintings – things we usually overlook: shipping containers, garages, airports, petrol stations, snack stands, and public lavatories.

His titles are short and direct. With dry precision, he names either the place or the object: Agip petrol station in Campania, Beautiful yellow house, Yellow diving platform, Ladder in Nassau Harbour, Red silo, Wannsee beach, Tel Aviv, or Venice.

It is Silbermann’s composition and technique that turn these works into something striking – true sights in every sense. He often works in either very small or landscape formats, drawing from his own photographs.

Ordinary buildings such as sheds or bus shelters occupy vast spaces on the canvas; multi-storey car parks appear in dramatic close-ups, and certain details come through from unusual angles. In his painting JFK, Silbermann transforms the runways at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport into a geometric dressmaker’s pattern.

Light plays a crucial role in Silbermann’s compositions. Through an artful balance of light and shadow and a cool-toned palette, arresting motifs emerge from barren places and deserted landscapes. Their colours and simplicity evoke the mood and atmosphere found in the works of American painter Edward Hopper.