anMUTIG / CHRSITOPH kathrin (collage) & KALLWEIT nando (sculpture)

18 - 27 October 2024

ONE WEEK SHOW Nr. 1

CHRISTOPH kathrin - The artist's works span an arc from the primal forms of pictorial representation to tangibly narrated, complex events. The raw materials are large-scale colour prints, monotypes, which fix the sublimity of the backgrounds on the special papers. When Kathrin Christoph cuts shapes from these freehand, applies them to the canvas in layers and adds purely painterly elements, she combines traditional techniques such as valeur painting and grisaille. The style is characterised by contrasts. Surfaces meet lines. Interventions with objective geometries and delicate glazes turn the works into hybrids of graphics, sculpture, relief and painting. This allows the artist to create different basic moods and spaces with expansiveness. The forms usually condense into concrete landscapes or urban scenes, becoming water, mountains or horizons. Her work thus becomes a complex allegory that questions the conditions of human existence; connection and stability, safety, longing, security and danger. From anonymous abstraction to the heartbeat of affection, the works can be read as formulas of existence - and the closer and closer you look at them, the more they become a heightened aesthetic experience, ultimately poetry - anMUTIG.

KALLWEIT nando - Kallweit's small and large figures, all of which have a coarse surface texture, are characterised by their elongated limbs, their slender stature, a graceful, filigree appearance that rises upwards in an almost Gothic manner and, in their stele-like and austere appearance, have something both antique and Nordic about them. Their strong physical presence in the room allows the viewer to consciously perceive their corporeality. They do not seek to fulfil any purpose, they are simply there, waiting to be encountered. They mark space with nothing other than their autonomy. The artist's conception of the figure is nevertheless not only inspired by ancient Egypt. It also combines characteristics of 20th century sculpture, especially Cubism. The suggestion of the figurative could be interpreted as a return to the anthropological constant and a wholesome image of man. His type of abstraction lacks any kind of calculation. Kallweit brings us closer to a mystery, he allows us to sense its essence, but he does not set it free. And he does not bother us with interpretations. He leads us to the gates of the mystical, but he does not open these gates. The artist uses both the lost wax and sand casting processes to create his bronzes. Other figures are made of flamed oak. Created in this way, they wait in quiet nobility for the pleasure of us all - completely anMUTIG.