Ulrike Gerst
Attica, May 1 to June 15, 2016In 2005, Ulrike Gerst had an exhibition at the Heart Center. Her pictures focused on "non-places", i.e. places where you would not want to linger.
Today she has gone many steps further. The magical light of strange building details has been intensified, and the coloring has sunk even deeper into the grey of melancholy. The details of the buildings are disturbing in their arbitrariness: staircases - where to? Gloomy window openings with half-closed blinds - painfully realistic.
Then a sudden change. If you look at the paintings as a series or sequence, you think you are looking at a section of a building front. The gloom clears and the aesthetics of realism emerge. The familiar becomes tangible.
The pair of paintings appears conciliatory and friendly to visitors who have just entered the Attika exhibition space.
A veritable artistic balancing act: the gloom brightens up and one is even tempted to make out zones of color in the monotonous grey.
Series Volksbad, gouache on paper, 2005
Location: Roskamm-Haus
Vita
- 1953 born in Neustadt/Weinstraße
- 1972 to 1976 studied Fine Arts and German at the PH Freiburg.
- 1996 to 2000 studied painting at the Free University for Graphic Design & Fine Arts Freiburg.
- 2003 Kleinbasel Art Prize
- 2009 Kavalierhaus Scholarship Langenargen
- Ulrike Gerst lives and works in Freiburg and Berlin