A contemporary art gallery exhibition at Galerie Clara Maria Sels in Düsseldorf, Germany features five female artists on view until November 9th, 2024. The show, entitled “The Grace of Materiality”, includes the works of Brigitte Dams, Anke Eilergerhard, Katharine Harvey,Claudia von Koolwijk, and Anke Lohrer. The creators braid and weave artworks, applied in layers or with piping bags, embroidered or translated into other media. The grace of materiality presents disparate artists who unite in their practice of experimentation and exploration of unusual materials.
There will be an ARTIST TALK with Anke Lohrer, Brigitte Dams & Anke Eilergerhard in conversation with Monja Droßmann, curator at Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop on Friday, November 8, 2024, at 7 pm.
My contemporary art paintings in the “Blueprint” series evolved out of my ambitious public artwork. “Shea’s Victoria”, completed for Great Gulf, is a condominium development at 25 Richmond Street East in downtown Toronto. I discovered this was the site of a Beaux-Arts theatre designed in 1908 for vaudeville acts and the first silent films. Called Shea’s Victoria, its exterior was relatively modest while inside it was as ornate as the live-theatre houses of the same era, including the Elgin and Winter Garden around the corner on Yonge Street in Toronto.
Defined by a riot of curving shapes and colour-saturated lines, my paintings take their inspiration from the theatre’s original blueprints. As with my other series, the public art project provided new material for my painting practice. Curves and forms, starting as fragments of century-old motifs, liquify into brilliant colour and light. The “Blueprint” series expresses an energy all its own. Each painting’s composition, maximized to the spatial boundaries of its framework, offers a powerful display of painterly expression and passion.
As a special project, I created an acrylic painting on a wooden canoe paddle for the gallery show. This artwork is available for sale in my SHOP.