About the exhibition

The inspiration for my latest abstract painting cycle, Dawn Series (2021), stems from the English translation of Homer’s Odyssey by Emily Wilson. I found it suitable to engage in this classic travel-epos in times of enforced immobility during a pandemic. Reading the Odyssey, I was particularly fascinated by the reoccurring motif of the dawn. While dawn “always appears, always with rosy fingers, always early” (Emily Wilson), it drives the story forward and brings about a very different day each day. I was fascinated by its repetition throughout the poem and its subtle modifications in phrasing which kept me engaged as a reader.

Coming from sculpture and assemblage work, I have been pursuing abstract painting for the last two years. It enabled me to integrate new procedures into my practice, adding different aspects to my image creation, such as color, contrast, layers, and rhythm.

When I started with the Dawn Series, I asked myself, was it possible to create a set of repeatable procedures, executed with slight variations to create a series of same-sized yet singular abstract paintings? Repetition would be crucial to anchor the process and move it along. Omission and alteration would support a dynamic process with different ensuing pathways in a continuous cycle.

The decision to use the same format (100 x 130 cm) for each painting provided structure and ultimately a lot of freedom within the frame. I mostly worked on the floor to apply the fluid layers of paint. The identical format allowed me to line up the canvases next to each other or even partially stack them on top of each other like a cascade to move paint from one canvas to the next and allow lines or shapes to continue and colors to repeat or reemerge on different canvases. To reinforce the idea of continuity, I worked predominantly with acrylic inks. It allowed me to use it flexibly with markers, brushes, or buckets to create subtle textures on the canvas without a heavy impasto build-up and thus give it a more ephemeral appeal. Next to the paint, I also used water as a painting device to move and remove paint and create negative marks.

The online exhibition takes the opportunity to show all 28 paintings of the cycle together in one virtual space. I assembled some of the works into diptychs or triptychs to showcase their ability to merge into a bigger composition. Please note that due to the limitations of the digital space the paintings have a white side-border. In reality, the paint runs over the edges.

The Dawn Series (work cycle and online exhibition) was supported by Hessische Kulturstiftung.