Konrad Wyrebek is a young London-based artist, whose vivid paintings explore themes of aspiration, lifestyle ideals and the impact of celebrity culture. Also embracing installation and sculpture, his Dalston studio is a creative chaos of fantasy colour bursts and stark monochrome silhouettes.

That chaos soon settles into patterns; clear series of new paintings stacked high on the walls of the former prosthetics factory. One of these series, ‘Beauty in Petrol’ contains sub-strands – including large-scale oil and acrylic paintings that focus on celebrities or super-rich personalities photographed alongside their model partners.

The poses on display are paparazzi-style but, with ‘Olivia Palermo and her boyfriend Johannes Huebl,’ the point-and-click smiles have been wiped – it’s a work that’s as unsettling as it is alluring. Take Huebl – he’s rendered a boyfriend-shaped space of hyper-real colour, as if he’s been cut-out and placed in some else’s ideal. As for Palermo, she might – if her hand wasn’t conjoined with her designer bag – reach out and poke fingers right through him; touch a paradise beyond. There’s a sense of the impermeable – that the pair are not in complete control of their image, and maybe even their identities.

Though often floating on a liberated colour palette, a dark glamour pervades these works; deepens in the stark monochromes of ‘We Are Slaves To A World That Doesn’t Exist.’ Here, a masked youth stares out – trapped in a page of a fashion editorial or the prison of sexual ritual. Wyrebek explains that his painting often uses style-mag imagery as a starting point. ‘Bom III’ is one such piece, having grown from a found photograph of a model posed as young business man.

A surface glance of ‘Bom III’ certainly suggests a male riding high in a society that celebrates youth and beauty. But there’s a sadness in the uncertain eyes, while his face shifts with vigorously painted deformations that remind of the ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’ or the ectoplasm of Victorian era séance photography. There is the suggestion that the youth’s spirit has been over-powered; corrupted – a victim of influence perhaps.

Identity issues recur throughout Wyrebek’s art, a theme that’s maybe most boldly tackled in ‘Byonce Is The New Black Madnna.’ Pose aside, the three female forms in this large grey-and-black painting bear little resemblance to the star. Presented in installation form, the painting is the centrepiece of a silver duct-tape pentagram that stretches out across the floor.

Staring at (or kneeling before) ‘Byonce Is The New Black Madnna’, the impression of a shrine – an anti-religion – is inescapable. But while it’s worship, it’s not of any particular star – this is worship of the idea of worshipping stars. After all, they – like the painting’s mannequin forms – are interchangeable. We can’t hope to live in their image, because whatever it is will be replaced tomorrow.

MM: Your work seems often to be about fluid identity in a world of almost infinite visual stimuli, so it makes sense that many of your paintings are based on found images. Where do you look, and what for?

KW: I search through magazines, papers and online sources like blogs and websites with fashion and lifestyle shoots. Sometimes I get them off Facebook too.
I’m seeking out images that, to me, say something about the times and our culture – that have a potential to open a dialogue and question the nature and value of the world we exist in. Before I start to work with an image I analyse what it is that I’m looking at, and why it looks the way it does. I think about what kind of information it’s delivering and what potential it has to become a story on its own.
As I paint I’m questioning this over and over again. I tend to reduce to the essence in terms of brush and mark making, getting rid of many elements. I make constant decisions about what is most important and essential for an image.

The painting ‘Beyonce Is New Black Madonna’ is the centrepiece of a pentagram installation, that has echoes of Russian constructivism as well as creating a shrine-like impact. Is there a darker meaning to the pentagram?

In European culture and Christian-based society, I read the pentagram as a symbol of anti-religion. But it can also be also read as a new religion – the birth of new beliefs through the negation of an old one.
So with that work I built up almost an altar-like installation with an oil painting of celebrity in an iconic pose. She’s a goddess for many. She’s an icon. The title says the rest.

Many of the works, including the new circular paintings, feature hyper-bright colours. These are deployed in a kind of gradient painting technique, so they blend into each other in a very light way. Why do you choose this technique?

For me these fantastical colours represent an idealised world – a world of dreams and ideas and of ambitions. They reflect the targets that all of us have and aim to achieve or reach . But I think it’s important that they’re faded into each other. The borders and edges are elusive, never far from flux. What you aim for can quickly become somewhere else.

See Konrad Wyrebek’s work in a show curated by Michael Petry at Clifford Chance Collection, 10 Upper Bank Street, Canary Wharf, London E14 5JJ. Tel: 020 7006 1000. Opens to public 17 June-15 July 2011.

Konrad Wyrebek, ‘Byonce Is The New Black Madnna’, oil painting tape and sliver panels installation

Konard Wyrebek, 'Exchange', 50x40cm 19,7x15,7in oil painting

Konard Wyrebek, 'She', 50x40cm 19,7x15,7in oil painting

Olivia Palermo and her boyfriend Johannes Huebl’, 2011, 120x90cm 47x35in oil painting

From the series ‘Beauty in Petrol’ this painting in oil and acrylic is one of several works that focus on found images of celebrities or super-rich personalities photographed alongside their model partners. With slick, heaving paint-strokes the face of Palermo is deformed, as if undergoing a transformation reminiscent of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Posed for the paparazzi rather than hiding in an attic, Palermo’s hand is conjoined with what might be a designer bag, while the texture of her clothes is expensive, luxurious; smooth. The dress is almost wearable, could be stepped into, and the boyfriend-shaped space is more inviting still. A hollow space of hyper-real colour, awaiting a form to fill it, there is the sense that you could reach out and put your hand through – touch a paradise beyond. Painted in gradient, the silhouette suggests an ideal – though one that’s almost manufactured; an accessory.

Konard Wyrebek, ‘PlayPray’, 80x80cm 31,5×31,5in oil painting

The position and shape of the human figure in this painting – part of the series “Young Slaves” – is intended to provoke possibilities. The body type is ambiguous, might be male or female; a state of flux and confusion that places the viewer in an uncertain place. Furthermore, the pose suggests a readying to pounce on prey, yet it is simultaneously a shape of submission. There is an edge of neon night-time to the violet marks highlighting areas of the figure. Here the spot-lights of a city strip club are homed in on the skin; targets where pain and pleasure are easily swapped.

Konard Wyrebek, ‘BoM III’, 75x65cm 29,5×25.6 in oil painting (right) Six Target Rigs Circle

From the ‘Beauty in Petrol’ series, ‘BoM III’ takes as its starting point a fashion photograph of a model posed as young business man. A surface glance suggests a male riding high in a society that celebrates youth, beauty and style. But there’s a sadness beneath the Photoshop-bought lifestyle; in the eyes that flirt and ask for approval – that can only experience happiness with the validation of our gaze.The heaving, vigorously painted deformations take this unease further; tug it into ill twists. There’s a link here to the ectoplasm of Victorian era séance photography; the suggestion that the youth’s spirit has been over-powered; corrupted.

Konrad Wyrebek ‘We Are Slaves To A World That Doesn’t Exist’ and ‘Circle5 Five Target Rings Circle6.