Martina Steckholzer
10 Mar - 17 Apr 2011
© Martina Steckholzer
Be in group shows - groups are good for networking, 2011
Oil on canvas
130 × 130 cm
Be in group shows - groups are good for networking, 2011
Oil on canvas
130 × 130 cm
MARTINA STECKHOLZER
Feathers/Federn
10 March to 17 April 2011
Wilkinson Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Martina Steckholzer.
In the last few years abstract painting has returned to the fore as a viable aspect to contemporary art discourse. For today’s practitioner of abstraction, the clash of histories is a built-in mediator for new posits. Gone is the angst-ridden he-man romantic visionary battling demons in pursuit of the great gestural exhortation.
Updated in the social climate of a new decade where media and its technology platforms offer easy and fast visual stimulus, abstraction deconstructs the unending layers of representation. Forsaking concrete worldly images, abstraction none-theless leaves a residue of those constructs within the space/time framework.
Idiosyncratic and freeform, the new series of abstract paintings by Martina Steckholzer are a departure from earlier hardedged works culled from self-made video footage of architectural spaces. While she still mines the hidden structural elements of utilitarian objects, sculptures, and architectural details, her paintings have shifted more towards nonreferentiality. Dispensing with a diagrammatically controlled formalism Steckholzer now employs a rapid-fire improvisation. Remixing historical precedent with contemporary strategies that distill information overload her paintings are more of a process art.
Still present, the geometric grid’s rigid structure has been pulled apart at the seams and subsumed through overlapping forms.
External stimulus acts as a catalyst while subjective considerations allow her to remain open to moments of epiphany or ‘happy mistakes’. Conveying this ambient immediacy the paintings are teeming with bright fluorescent colors (suggesting a latent Pop) contrasted nicely by atonal shifts, neutral palettes, and gestural bursts of spray-paint.
Such ungainly, playful juxtapositions take on a life of their own even as forms bleed into and out of each other, and order is made from chaos. Color, line, and mark-making bend and twist in size and scale boldly asserting their sensorial impact upon the viewer.
Martina Steckholzer studied at Freie Kunstschule Stuttgart, Germany and Acdemy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria. Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2010) and Stadtgalerie Schwaz, Austria (2009). Recent group exhibitions include ‘Passion fruits picked from the Olbricht Collection’, me Collectors Room, Berlin; ‘How to be a player –Gregor Eldarb & Martina Steckholzer’, Galerie Stadtpark (2009); ‘Peripheral Vision and Collective Body’, MUSEION, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano, Italy (2008)
Feathers/Federn
10 March to 17 April 2011
Wilkinson Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Martina Steckholzer.
In the last few years abstract painting has returned to the fore as a viable aspect to contemporary art discourse. For today’s practitioner of abstraction, the clash of histories is a built-in mediator for new posits. Gone is the angst-ridden he-man romantic visionary battling demons in pursuit of the great gestural exhortation.
Updated in the social climate of a new decade where media and its technology platforms offer easy and fast visual stimulus, abstraction deconstructs the unending layers of representation. Forsaking concrete worldly images, abstraction none-theless leaves a residue of those constructs within the space/time framework.
Idiosyncratic and freeform, the new series of abstract paintings by Martina Steckholzer are a departure from earlier hardedged works culled from self-made video footage of architectural spaces. While she still mines the hidden structural elements of utilitarian objects, sculptures, and architectural details, her paintings have shifted more towards nonreferentiality. Dispensing with a diagrammatically controlled formalism Steckholzer now employs a rapid-fire improvisation. Remixing historical precedent with contemporary strategies that distill information overload her paintings are more of a process art.
Still present, the geometric grid’s rigid structure has been pulled apart at the seams and subsumed through overlapping forms.
External stimulus acts as a catalyst while subjective considerations allow her to remain open to moments of epiphany or ‘happy mistakes’. Conveying this ambient immediacy the paintings are teeming with bright fluorescent colors (suggesting a latent Pop) contrasted nicely by atonal shifts, neutral palettes, and gestural bursts of spray-paint.
Such ungainly, playful juxtapositions take on a life of their own even as forms bleed into and out of each other, and order is made from chaos. Color, line, and mark-making bend and twist in size and scale boldly asserting their sensorial impact upon the viewer.
Martina Steckholzer studied at Freie Kunstschule Stuttgart, Germany and Acdemy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria. Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2010) and Stadtgalerie Schwaz, Austria (2009). Recent group exhibitions include ‘Passion fruits picked from the Olbricht Collection’, me Collectors Room, Berlin; ‘How to be a player –Gregor Eldarb & Martina Steckholzer’, Galerie Stadtpark (2009); ‘Peripheral Vision and Collective Body’, MUSEION, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano, Italy (2008)