Dubai · 17/09/2026
Stephan Kaluza: From Dust to Bloom
The German artist's first solo exhibition in the UAE
JD Malat Gallery Dubai presents From Dust to Bloom, an exhibition of paintings by the German artist Stephan Kaluza. His practice is fundamentally concerned with the depiction of nature, whether in hyper-realistic oil paintings or in near-abstract renderings. These two modes should not be understood as separate bodies of work; rather, they represent different states of the same subject — distinct stages in an ongoing process of transformation. At first, the canvases present seemingly idyllic scenes: lush vegetation, still water, glowing sunsets. Yet not everything here is pure nature. Disruptions creep in and appearances prove deceptive. The ostentatious beauty of the natural world, captured in the nunc stans — the timeless 'now' — is opened up to question. What initially reads as a precise, almost preservative image of an intact world gradually reveals a second layer that sharply challenges what we believe we are seeing. The exhibition brings together recent works from the Transit series, including large panoramas, diptychs and a trio of sunset paintings, alongside The Disappeared and the new Impact series, tracing Kaluza's movement between meticulous realism and dissolution.