ANKE RÖHRSCHEID
UNTITLED
01.09.2022 – 22.10.2022
We are happy to present Anke Röhrscheid, well known Frankfurt-based artist, in a solo exhibition Untitled, which presents a new series of deep blue, partly large-format watercolours.
As in her earlier large red works, for which Röhrscheid is widely known and represented in many museums, the artist grounds the paint in many layers, the lightest at first and the darkest at last, and then, in a slow process, shapes out forms and figures that enliven the surface and set it in motion. Shapes against a bright background are created ex negativo, so to speak – in an unusual process in which the artist removes paint with a wet brush. The „figures“ that populate her pictorial spaces have become more abstract in the blue series and are now reminiscent of crystals or molecules.
The resulting „blue spaces“ are not only reminiscent of the recently published images of the universe through the James Webb Space Telescope, but also of sacred spaces in semi-darkness and offer subtle spatial experiences and „in-between states“, such as those created by James Turrell in his installations. Röhrscheid’s new blue series immediately have a deeply relaxing and calming effect on us and in that sense present themselves almost as a kind of counterpart to her earlier large red formats.
Another new work is the monumental 3-D animation, which is an enlarged digital revival of a watercolour with the same motif created a few years ago. Here, as in her earlier films and digital works, the artist draws on her own pictorial ideas and uses movement and cinematic effects to create an impact that can go far beyond the possibilities of her otherwise preferred medium, watercolour. Psychological moments ranging from fascination to threat are evoked by the „sword“ rotating on its own axis with its red spikes. The music accompanying the animation was composed by producer and sound designer Ludwig A.F.
Text by Dr. Ingrid Pfeiffer, Curator, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main
Installation views © Wolfgang Günzel
