Charlotte Schleiffert
02 Jun - 28 Jul 2006
CHARLOTTE SCHLEIFFERT
Exhibition 2 June - 28 July 2006
Opening June 1, 7-9pm
Charlotte Schleiffert’s large-format drawings and paintings describe role-playing, excess, and the struggle for survival; they are about sexism, power, and violence, and express elementary emotions and desires. Her protagonists, mostly women, are a mixture of people she has encountered on the street, on television, or in magazines. In front of a white background, they pose as oversized pop idols, fantastic creatures, or warroirs.
Schleiffert offers a very personal interpretation of headlines rampant in various media, dealing with politics, religious and terrorist fanaticism, or violence against women. In Jesus Lives, she combines props used for a sexy glamour look with allusive, priest-like clothing and high white collars, hippie jewelry, and fashionable boots. Religion is concealed in different costumes; God has many faces. In Bomber, a woman’s naked skin is painted in camouflage colors, a frayed and bloody red band loops around her body; terrorism is expressed in the dynamic physical motion. The woman explodes from her center, showing the tragedy of a suicide bomb. Schleiffert effectively condenses the narrative of her images into a single figure.
During the past years Schleiffert has lived in China and Rotterdam, alternatively. Her cultural impressions of Asia also influence her paintings. Inspired by traditional patterns and fabrics, the figures are ornamentalized, dissolving in the painterly gesture. In Schleiffert’s new drawings, the women transform into mysterious, fantastic creatures, something between human and animal, man and woman, oversized chimeras with sensual bodies and smoldering hair. In Circumcised, Schleiffert addresses the continuing practice of genital mutilation. The woman’s glowing red wound and its stitches lend a decorative character similar to that of the floral garlands tattooed on her skin. Society’s notions of beauty, injury, and pain are closely related.
Schleiffert does not shy away from controversial themes and narratives. Nevertheless, she does not show the horrific or the cruel; rather than openly criticizing, she vaccinates her images with a touch of ease and glamour. She makes use of the direct way various media have of conveying messages, thus quickly drawing the attention of the viewer. Obvious unsubtleties are dissolved in the details of multiple meanings and associations. Her treasure house of ideas is also reflected in the artist’s creative mix of materials. Besides paper and canvas, she combines materials such as rice paper, silk or plastic with acrylics, pencil and pastel.
Charlotte Schleiffert (born 1967, Tilburg, Netherlands) lives and works in Rotterdam and Xiamen, China. In 1999 she received the Prix de Rome Award for Painting. In 2004 the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam devoted an acclaimed solo exhibition and catalogue to her works. Her first solo museum show in Germany will take place at the Palais für aktuelle Kunst in Glückstadt from 2 July to 20 August, 2006.
© Charlotte Schleiffert
"Circumcised"
2006
Mixed techniques on paper
h: 244 x w: 150 cm / h: 96,1 x w: 59,1 in
Exhibition 2 June - 28 July 2006
Opening June 1, 7-9pm
Charlotte Schleiffert’s large-format drawings and paintings describe role-playing, excess, and the struggle for survival; they are about sexism, power, and violence, and express elementary emotions and desires. Her protagonists, mostly women, are a mixture of people she has encountered on the street, on television, or in magazines. In front of a white background, they pose as oversized pop idols, fantastic creatures, or warroirs.
Schleiffert offers a very personal interpretation of headlines rampant in various media, dealing with politics, religious and terrorist fanaticism, or violence against women. In Jesus Lives, she combines props used for a sexy glamour look with allusive, priest-like clothing and high white collars, hippie jewelry, and fashionable boots. Religion is concealed in different costumes; God has many faces. In Bomber, a woman’s naked skin is painted in camouflage colors, a frayed and bloody red band loops around her body; terrorism is expressed in the dynamic physical motion. The woman explodes from her center, showing the tragedy of a suicide bomb. Schleiffert effectively condenses the narrative of her images into a single figure.
During the past years Schleiffert has lived in China and Rotterdam, alternatively. Her cultural impressions of Asia also influence her paintings. Inspired by traditional patterns and fabrics, the figures are ornamentalized, dissolving in the painterly gesture. In Schleiffert’s new drawings, the women transform into mysterious, fantastic creatures, something between human and animal, man and woman, oversized chimeras with sensual bodies and smoldering hair. In Circumcised, Schleiffert addresses the continuing practice of genital mutilation. The woman’s glowing red wound and its stitches lend a decorative character similar to that of the floral garlands tattooed on her skin. Society’s notions of beauty, injury, and pain are closely related.
Schleiffert does not shy away from controversial themes and narratives. Nevertheless, she does not show the horrific or the cruel; rather than openly criticizing, she vaccinates her images with a touch of ease and glamour. She makes use of the direct way various media have of conveying messages, thus quickly drawing the attention of the viewer. Obvious unsubtleties are dissolved in the details of multiple meanings and associations. Her treasure house of ideas is also reflected in the artist’s creative mix of materials. Besides paper and canvas, she combines materials such as rice paper, silk or plastic with acrylics, pencil and pastel.
Charlotte Schleiffert (born 1967, Tilburg, Netherlands) lives and works in Rotterdam and Xiamen, China. In 1999 she received the Prix de Rome Award for Painting. In 2004 the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam devoted an acclaimed solo exhibition and catalogue to her works. Her first solo museum show in Germany will take place at the Palais für aktuelle Kunst in Glückstadt from 2 July to 20 August, 2006.
© Charlotte Schleiffert
"Circumcised"
2006
Mixed techniques on paper
h: 244 x w: 150 cm / h: 96,1 x w: 59,1 in