Patrick Heide Contemporary Art is delighted to present “Still's life", the second solo exhibition of Ina Geissler in London.
In her new show the German artist will present new paintings from her recent "Flash" series and works on paper from four different series she has been working on in the past year, many larger in scale and mostly executed in watercolour.
In tune with her earlier series all her recent works require “an active attitude in terms of reception, viewing as a conscious act” as Peter Lodermeyer points out in the catalogue essay.
The viewer must acquire a curiosity to discover, a willingness to participate and plunge into the multi-layered spatial concepts of Ina Geissler’s compositions.
While many of her earlier series were relating to architectural spaces and their fragments, are most of the new works almost devoid of any of these references, leaving more space for a more painterly treatment of her subject matter. While these references are disappearing, new shapes such as the circle and the spherical emerge which break her compositions open and result in a pictorial language that is only remotely associated with its sources and enters a universe of its own.
Many of the paintings in Geissler’s latest “Flash” series still include the grating and taped off triangular shapes familiar from earlier paintings. However, all compositions are pervaded with discs and superimposed concentric circles and sphericals that pull them away from any architectural notions. Round openings, almost like bullet holes, or “peepholes” according to Lodermeyer, expose the layers beneath yet define the surface structure at the same time. The imagery cannot be determined, it is as if the reverse of another image or space would move into sight and dissolve again. Her paintings are images oscillating between illusion and reality, fleeting images of our ever-changing virtual world.
The works on paper are mostly watercolors of stunning complexity and refinement. The more structural compositions as in “Färben” and partly in the “Lightsnight” series comprise of layers of colour and light, which is what the series are essentially about. Technically elaborate they develop great depth and perspective yet are lighter than many of her former series thanks to the use of the translucent medium.
In other series Ina Geissler experiments with structurally less rigid compositions. She introduces round and oval shapes while leaving parts of the paper untouched as if the shapes hover in space.
The "Still's Life" series for example is more intimate, also because of the smaller size. At the core of it there is a spherical shape that is gradually broken up into free floating elements.
In the black and white "Unterton" series Geissler is pushing the boundaries even further creating a complex 3-D underwater-like cosmos that is flooded with rays and bubbles of light.
Born in Hamburg, Ina Geißler studied painting at Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. She has exhibited widely in Germany and won several prizes and scholarships such as the Villa Serpentara in Olevano, Italy.
Geißler lives and works in Berlin, her work is part of several high profile private collections.
A catalogue entitled “Still’s Life” will be published alongside the show.