Karoline Bröckel
- my own language - - October 02 until October 30, 2021

 

The gallery will be closed 22.9. - 1.10.2021

Opening: Saturday, October 2, 4-7 p.m.

In my drawings I make dynamics visible. Experienced from my environment undergoes an immediate transformation and appears as a line or line field on the paper. I am interested in movements that mostly originate in nature: What does the path look like that an ant seeks on the ground? What trajectory does a swallow take in the sky? How does a bee search for nectar? How does rain drip onto the pavement? How does snow fall? Or how does the wind move the branches of a birch tree? Music and a bird's voice are also impulses that inspire me to draw. What I perceive, I translate into my own language with the help of the drawing. (Karoline Bröckel)

For more than 15 years we have been accompanying the drawing work of Karoline Bröckel. We are pleased to present in this exhibition, in addition to some early drawings, for the first time works from the new work groups Hummeln, Bienen and Zilpzalp (Bumblebees, Bees and Chiffchaff) from this year.

Karoline Bröckel's drawings are in many cases created outside, plein air, and in great dependence on the occurrence of the phenomena to which they refer.

When the lavender bushes are in bloom and the sun is shining, the flowers are visited by bees and bumblebees. They fly to flower after flower and wander on them in search of nectar. It is this tiny movement to which Bröckel directs her attention, which she follows with the utmost concentration with her eyes, while her hand leaves a myriad of tiny pencil marks on the papers, which can measure up to 70 x 100 cm. Time loses its meaning, the ability to look attentively is challenged to the extreme. The viewers have to look very closely, to approach the sheet in order to fathom it.

The drawings in the Zilpzalp group of works consist of two to four A4 sheets. On them, one sees millimeter-sized pencil strokes arranged in lines, with smaller and larger blank spaces in between. A line stands for one of the short, harsh calls of the Common Chiffchaff, of which the small songbird usually emits several in succession, always at the same interval. The spaces document the time in which the bird does not call, in which Bröckel continues to count in his mind in the rhythm of the calls. They depict the passing of time, the waiting in the hope that the bird will continue to sing.

Karoline Bröckel's drawings consist of abstract strokes and lines that have completely detached themselves from their natural origin. They nevertheless change our view of nature. A reciprocal recognition is possible. In times of great threats to the natural world, they also make it clear: without swallows and ants, without bumblebees and bees and without the chiffchaff, these works of art would not exist.

Karoline Bröckel (*1964) lives and works near Munich. Her works have been part of some of the most important institutional drawing exhibitions in recent years, such as "Drawing as Process" at Museum Folkwang Essen 2008, "Walk the Line" at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg 2015, "Drawingrooms" at Hamburger Kunsthalle 2016 and "Der Gedanke der Linie" at Galerie Stihl Waiblingen 2017. Until January 2022, works by Karoline Bröckel can be seen in the exhibition “Spurensuche” at Museum PEAC in Freiburg (opening 19.9.2021).

The exhibition is accompanied by Karoline Bröckel's first monographic survey catalog
IN MEINER SPRACHE, published by Verlag Kettler, Dortmund. It comprises 68 pages with numerous illustrations and a text by Jens Peter Koerver.

Please note the regulations of the Corona Protection Ordinance in force on the day of the opening.