At first glance, Johannes Kahrs" dramatic paintings and drawings seem to carry forward the clear, everyday truths of snapshots; on closer inspection they become intricate, mysterious, fictional worlds. Kahrs manipulates found imagery from film stills, newspapers and personal photographs and liberates figures from their original contexts into dark, uncanny atmospheres. Through an intense pursuit of detail, he works to transplant into the viewer his own initial fascination with the image for its own sake. On top of all this methodology and maneuvering, he distances the viewer from the works by presenting them behind glass, so that their glazed surfaces throw back light and reflection. Kahrs, born in Bremen in 1961 and currently based in Berlin, has shown widely in Europe, at the Drawing Center and P.S.1 in New York, the Phoenix Art Museum and Miami"s Bass Museum of Art.