AIR Exhibition
Drawing Exhibition
by Astrid Köppe
My work consists to a large amount of drawing. For more than ten years now, my works on paper are strictly in the same size: A4, portrait format. Onto these sheets I place my single or few motifs. I work almost exclusively with things I have actually seen – therefore, being in another country influences my work strongly. What I picture is a subjective essence of an object, filtered through my kind of selective perception. I do not invent forms, but sometimes reduce or exaggerate certain aspects, or compare or contrast it with similar shapes. By doing this, already in the process of planning a drawing, several ways of interpretation open up and I try to keep them as open as possible.
In the finished works, the motifs can never actually be resolved entirely; rather, they recall something familiar that can scarcely be summed up in words. The drawings I find satisfying are at the tipping point, so to speak; the objects shown are settled and unsettled at the same time. This balance between clarity and unclarity, certainty and uncertainty, interest me. In order to retain their ambivalence, my drawings are untitled on principle.
by Astrid Köppe
Bio
Astrid Köppe is a German visual artist who explores the beauty of unknown and mysterious shapes through her detailed drawings of abstract forms. Astrid produces a cognitive dissonance in her viewers by complicating both the identification of the object as well as the aesthetic aspects of the work. She enjoys playing with the boundary of the beautiful and exploring the concept of the distasteful. Her drawings often depict shapes that are impossible to classify or name. Plant, animal, mineral, or some strange hybridized combination of these, each work defies classification.
A German Artist Residency Project collaboration with Goethe-Institut Malaysia
Date of Exhibition
21st – 26th Feb 2012
Soft Launch
21st February 2012 (Tue), 8.00pm
Venue
The Annexe Gallery
photo credits to Astrid Köppe
