FROM DUST TO BLOOM OPENS AT JD MALAT GALLERY DUBAI
Stephan Kaluza explores photorealism, abstraction and the transformation of nature in a new solo exhibition of paintings 17 September – 31 October 20
Stephan Kaluza, The Disappeared, oil on canvas, 140 × 210 cm. Courtesy of JD Malat Gallery Dubai.
JD Malat Gallery is pleased to present FROM DUST TO BLOOM, a solo exhibition by German artist Stephan Kaluza. Drawing on nature as a recurring source of inspiration, Kaluza explores landscapes, forests and other natural environments through both hyper-realistic and abstract painting. Across these approaches, nature appears not as something fixed, but as a subject in continual transformation.
In the Transit series, the works initially appear as highly precise depictions of a seemingly intact world. Gradually, they become more ambiguous; disturbances enter the image, forms begin to shift, and the distinction between an observed place and an imagined one becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.
The viewer’s experience of nature’s apparent beauty, captured in a seemingly timeless present, is sharply challenged by sudden, sweeping distortion. This tension lies at the heart of The Disappeared, Kaluza’s ongoing body of work. Drawing together references from locations around the world, Kaluza constructs hyper-real natural settings. These transcriptive montages invite viewers to observe nature closely while simultaneously confronting our dislocation from it.
Alongside these realistic paintings are works from the Sunset series, in which the same motifs become reduced, fragmented, and progressively dissolved. The kaleidoscope of diverse hues, scents, and rapid movements of an intact environment are disassembled into its constituent parts. The abstract image emerges from the realistic depiction, as visible reality gradually loses its fixed nature.
This transient passage points towards what may already be disappearing; nature increasingly shaped, controlled, or damaged by human intervention. What initially appears as familiar reality transforms into an autonomous, nearly abstract visual world.
Stephan Kaluza, Sunset 3, 2026, oil on canvas, 120 × 120 cm. Courtesy of JD Malat Gallery Dubai.
Stephan Kaluza, Transit 320, 2026, oil on canvas, 200 × 180 cm. Courtesy of JD Malat Gallery Dubai.
Biography
Stephan Kaluza (b. 1964, Bad Iburg) studied art and art history at the Peter Behrens School of Arts and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and later philosophy at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. His practice, defined by a multidisciplinary background in painting, photography and writing, is characterised by large-format depictions of nature through which he explores the boundaries between photorealism and abstraction. Kaluza’s work has been exhibited internationally and is held in globally recognised museum and private collections, including the Arp Museum, Gwangju Museum of Art, Ludwig Museum Koblenz and the François Pinault Group collection. His work is celebrated for its distinctive approach to landscape and its reverence for the natural world.
