Paul Schütze’s multi-sensory Air into Light

The Australian born Renaissance man, who now lives in London will be showing 18 of his works at a short, sharp show in London’s Mayfair, and each of the pieces reflects a musical work from the past 25 years of Schütze’s work.

In the run up to his focus on the visual side of things, Schütze has followed a rather beguiling career trajectory. Having left the Caulfield Institute art school to work in  a factory, he discovered a passion for electronic music. This new infatuation took the budding composer to London for a few months, before returning to Melbourne to form musical improvisation group Laughing Hands.

Film scores, sound installations and solo albums followed throughout the 1980s, before Schütze returned to London to write for The Wire and continue with musical improvisation, this time with the group Phantom City. In 2000, he exhibited in the London’s Hayward Gallery’s revered Sonic Boom sound-art exhibition.

With this in mind, his multi-sensory new show takes on a new life: the images are as haunting as they are beautiful, mostly dark, evocative snapshots that, according to the gallery, aim to ‘capture the abstract and the elusive’.

In a truly synaesthesic exhibition, the works will be shown to the soundtrack of the music that they’re based on – with the olfactory bonus of a scented diffusion filling the space, thanks to perfume by Frederic Malle.

Paul Schütze: Air Into Light runs from 12 – 17 March at Maggs Bros., 50 Hays Mews, London W1J