Berlin based

Berlin based SA artist Michael Kutschbach, who has a new exhibition at Greenway Art Gallery. Source: AdelaideNow

His 10-month-old son, particularly, is enjoying the novelty of playing outdoors.

"The past few weeks in Berlin, it has been getting dark at 4.30pm," Kutschbach says. Kutschbach, a graduate of the SA School of Art, 2004 Samstag Scholarship winner and designer of go you little dynamo, go!, the abstract sculpture on the 2008 Adelaide Festival poster, has based himself in Berlin for the past five years.

That partly is because his wife is German, and partly because it has become a mecca for artists worldwide.

Berlin is filled with artists, Kutschbach says. "It's one of the most affordable cities in Europe," he says.

"There's plenty of space to work and a supportive community of artists.

"It's also a very young city. A lot of people say it reminds them of New York of about 20 years ago."

All this suits Kutschbach perfectly. His work is fresh, edgy and, depending on how you view it, often funny. His Greenaway show is a mix of small drawings of abstract shapes, small sculptures that evolved from the drawings and a video featuring aspects of both.

Kutschbach also has rendered some of the sculptures large-scale in chalk on a blackboard backdrop.

What does it all mean?

"I'm very much a materials-based artist," Kutschbach says.

"For me, art making doesn't begin with an idea as such, but a studio and the idea of playing with materials.

"It's the kind of abstract art I like to produce - approachable, friendly, fun but also a bit strange and nonsensical." That is where the exhibition's title, Manxome Foe, comes in.

Kutschbach borrowed the phrase from Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem, a surprisingly comprehensible work given it consists almost entirely of made-up words.

"Nonsense is very difficult to make," Kutschbach says.

"Lewis manages to do it a way that makes sense, that makes the words seem real."

That is something Kutschbach aims for with his amorphous creations. "The work is as much about the viewer and how they interpret it," he says.

"They're curious forms, highly suggestive. Looking at them is a lot like looking at clouds. There are different shapes and forms, which could be suggestive of faces or markings or architecture. It's up to the viewer to spend time with them."

WHAT: Michael Kutschbach: Manxome Foe

WHERE: Greenaway Art Gallery

WHEN: Until December 19

COST: Free