Maria Brunner
07 Mar - 11 Apr 2009
MARIA BRUNNER
"Superfly"
Mar 7 - Apr 11, 2009
The current exhibition of Maria Brunner at Galerie Gisela Capitain features oil paintings in two opposite formats, large portraits and small landscapes. All involve shades of grey and deep and diffuse spaces. Rouged eyes and mouths float beneath gherkins, lettuces or chocolates. The single components appear photo-realistic and almost tangible. The paintings are not a copy of reality, but are, in fact, surrealistic dream worlds. Memories of a special taste, of an extreme feeling, guide the artist when she creates her compositions.
Maria Brunner paints very precisely and therefore her paintings achieve a quality of ultra-materiality. The precise, pictorial analysis of the objects’ surfaces contrast with the ambiguity of content. It is a very specific sensuality with subtle undertones. Brunner combines things in a painterly collage which do not belong together naturally, but complement each other perfectly. She takes photographs from newspapers and of the metallic effect of high-glossy confectionery wrappers, or she uses the twins from Stanley Kubricks thriller ‚The Shining’ in a gouache.
The titles play an important role in understanding Maria Brunner’s works, Liquid Palisander, Gemalte Arznei (Painted Medicine), Put Your Eyes in Your Mouth, are titles that carry contradicting elements. Gefühltes Selbstportrait (Self-portrait felt) is the title of one painting in which an ear seems to be glued to distorted balloon shaped balls. These bubbles of matt or glossy surface reflect pieces of an urban surrounding and in between there is a black silhouette, the artist herself.
* Quotation: Chaudia Ihlefeld, Klebrig wie die Malerei, in: Heilbronner Stimme, June 28, 2008 (published on the occasion of a solo-exhibition of Maria Brunner at Kunstverein Heilbronn)
"Superfly"
Mar 7 - Apr 11, 2009
The current exhibition of Maria Brunner at Galerie Gisela Capitain features oil paintings in two opposite formats, large portraits and small landscapes. All involve shades of grey and deep and diffuse spaces. Rouged eyes and mouths float beneath gherkins, lettuces or chocolates. The single components appear photo-realistic and almost tangible. The paintings are not a copy of reality, but are, in fact, surrealistic dream worlds. Memories of a special taste, of an extreme feeling, guide the artist when she creates her compositions.
Maria Brunner paints very precisely and therefore her paintings achieve a quality of ultra-materiality. The precise, pictorial analysis of the objects’ surfaces contrast with the ambiguity of content. It is a very specific sensuality with subtle undertones. Brunner combines things in a painterly collage which do not belong together naturally, but complement each other perfectly. She takes photographs from newspapers and of the metallic effect of high-glossy confectionery wrappers, or she uses the twins from Stanley Kubricks thriller ‚The Shining’ in a gouache.
The titles play an important role in understanding Maria Brunner’s works, Liquid Palisander, Gemalte Arznei (Painted Medicine), Put Your Eyes in Your Mouth, are titles that carry contradicting elements. Gefühltes Selbstportrait (Self-portrait felt) is the title of one painting in which an ear seems to be glued to distorted balloon shaped balls. These bubbles of matt or glossy surface reflect pieces of an urban surrounding and in between there is a black silhouette, the artist herself.
* Quotation: Chaudia Ihlefeld, Klebrig wie die Malerei, in: Heilbronner Stimme, June 28, 2008 (published on the occasion of a solo-exhibition of Maria Brunner at Kunstverein Heilbronn)