“A Dream Within a Dream” is a poem by the notable American poet Edgar Allan Poe. In this poem, Poe dramatizes the deep confusion the narrator feels as he watches the important things in life fade away. Realizing that he cannot hold on to even a grain of sand, he is driven to the final, haunting question of whether all things are ultimately no more than a dream….

The artist Dirk Salz states that Exactly this status of ambiguity and inability of real knowledge is one point I’m aiming at with my paintings. For, is that what I see the painted composition or just reflection? Is there a real space I’m looking at or is it an imagination? –  and eventually what is the artwork? Just the painted coloured and non coloured material glued to the support? or is the inevitable reflection in fact an integral part of the work? Realising our inability to answer all questions: what can we be sure of – at all?

Formally and stylistically the «paintings» of Dirk Salz recall the work of twentieth century masters Josef Albers, Ad Reinhardt and to a certain extent Donald Judd. They appear to speak the same language expressing a preoccupation with colour, composition and a resolute reduction of form. However the tone of Salz’ works – comprising multiple translucent layers of pigment suspended in resin – is distinct from his modern mentors. Utilising contemporary means and methods the artist constructs a truly visual ‘experience’ of form and colour whereby our sense of the painting’s surface and apparent depth is continually challenged depending on our distance from and orientation to the artwork’s highly reflective surface.

In the end, it may be that “all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream”.