Jessica Buhlmann, Liviu Bulea and Katrin Kampmann
Curated by Katia Hermann & Linda Toivio
Opening Thursday 27 October 2022, 5-10 pm
Exhibition period 27 – 30 October 2022
Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday 3-7 pm
RETRAMP Gallery
Reuterstr.62
12047 Berlin
www.retramp.com
The group show Weiterbildung-Reshaped presents the work of three artists breaking the rectangular format or the two-dimensionality of the classical canvas, while developing it further. Evolved within modern painting after the 40s, shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration and may be shaped by altering their outline and format, in order to achieve congruence between the content of the picture and its form, or alternatively a dialectical relationship between the outer and inner forms. Going a step further, canvases may be altered by losing their flatness, in adding relief with different materials such as in Combine paintings. Arguably, changing the surface configuration of the painting transforms it into a (wall) sculpture.
After nearly twenty years of consistent work in abstract painting and drawing, Jessica Buhlmann’s practice evolved towards shaped canvas and three-dimensional works, as she continued experimenting with materials, shapes and colours. Inspired by nature and found materials, the artist works with randomness, accidents and contingencies on multiple levels. Guided by intuition and sensitivity, she oscillates between planning and spontaneity, movement and stasis. Poised between composition and improvisation, an aesthetic ecosystem of subtle relationships, dramatic balances, and constant surprise comprises the abstract work of Jessica Buhlmann.
Livia Bulea defines himself as a social practice installation artist. In his Combine paintings, collages and assemblages, he is mixing architectural and natural elements as well as materials and mediums such as concrete and branches, photography and drawing. His wall installations depict traumatic processes, transforming them into emotions and drawing attention to particular social issues and structures, sometimes lost through selective memory. Creating a universe where nature and urbanity act in balance, the motif of ruins, the prefabricated and recycled enter into a dialog with architecture. Liviu’s work is closely connected to places and to experiences of those. His mixed media works are collections of stories, of memories of people and places, and therefore of different materials from urban and natural surroundings. This materiality breaks the two-dimensionality of the flat frame, creating sculptural wall works full of references, stimulating, sensitive, both rugged and fragile.
Katrin Kampmann’s colour intense paintings and pictorial approach are based on what is seen as poetic, extraordinary, and inaccessible. Her artistic ideas focus on the exploration of and immersion in the deeper layers of our psyche and cultural existence. In her work, she deals with social issues and repeatedly conducts an artistic comparison with reality in mixing abstract shapes and figurative elements, often inspired by literature or particular contemporary topics. Gesture, expressiveness and lightness form the foundations of her practice, alongside different techniques such as acrylic, ink or printmaking. Abandoning the rectangular shape of the canvas after nearly two decades, she creates sculptural paintings, shaping her canvas as one single entity or as multiple elements of one picture. Playful and strong, her painting is willing to expand in space.
About the artists
Jessica Buhlmann (*1977 in Potsdam, Germany), Buhlmann lives and works in Berlin and graduated in 2007 with a masters in Contemporary Art at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Her work has been featured in exhibitions in Germany and other countries such as Sweden, Czech Republic, and Canada. After focusing on abstract painting for more than twenty years, she has in recent years steadily expanded the concepts and forms of her previous explorations into sculptures and installations. Poised between composition and improvisation, her “poems in space” constitute aesthetic ecosystems of subtle and complex relationships, fragile yet intense balances, and constant surprise.
Liviu Bulea (*1989 in Turda, Romania), lives and works in Turda and Berlin. For his BA and MA, he conducted research on the diseased body, focusing on memories of spaces and objects from hospital oncology wards. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Arts and Design in Cluj-Napoca, where he works on the relationship between art, architecture and the urban environment. His field of research extends from spaces of architectural memory to the queer community. Liviu has exhibited his works at the Romanian Cultural Institute, Berlin; French Cultural Institute, Cluj; National Art Museum, Cluj, Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; Mumok Vienna; Parallel Vienna, Bucharest Biennale, etc. He has done many residencies, for ex. Kultur Kontakt, Vienna; Styria Art in Residency, Graz and Cité internationale des arts in Paris.
https://bulealiviu.wixsite.com/my-site
Katrin Kampmann (*1979 in Bonn, Germany). Since 2000 the artist lives and works in Berlin. From 2001 to 2006 she studied painting at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) with Prof. K.H. Hödicke and was honored as the winner of the Master Student Award after graduating in 2006. Since then, her work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions, including Milan, Seoul, Ludwigsburg, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna, Wiesbaden and Los Angeles. In 2010, she won the Dorothea Konwiarz Scholarship and was a finalist for the Phoenix Art Prize in 2011. Kampmann’s work has also been exhibited at the Museum of Art Wuhan in China, the Kunsthalle Dresden, the Kunsthalle Rostock and the Rosenhang Museum.
http://www.katrinkampmann.com.
https://daisy-hibiscus-dtkk.squarespace.com/shows/reshaped
