16 March - 26 April 2025
Andreas Johnen, Bernadette Schockaert, Christin Wilcken, Elements
The exhibition Elements brings together works by Andreas Johnen, Bernadette Schockaert and Christin Wilcken. While the artistic practices of each of the artists differ considerably, there is common ground in the exploration of space and light, of materiality and form or shape, of colour and line. The idea for this show emerged some time ago when I thought back to the lecture performance by Toon Leën at the ME Collectors Room, in Berlin, entitled: Personally, I’m most interested in the shapes and colours. In that project, the author had undertaken an artistic research project on contemporary abstraction and its perception and reception.
Marie-Thérèse Huppertz
Andreas Johnen, Untitled (2009)
At what point does a sculpture stand out from flat paintings in terms of its form and ‘objectness’? Does the viewer get the impression of an independent sculptural object without it being directly designed in its form? Those are questions that Andreas Johnen asks himself when he is not working with watercolour and paper, where the material also performs.
In each of the group of seven block-like sculptures, a tension is created between a changing internal construction and a consistent external form. Within the form, constructed with concrete formwork panels, the materials interact and interlock through expansion and compression to create a reality that appears highly plastic. By combining standard materials – in this case, concrete and coloured PU foam – the artist creates a sense of proximity with the viewer. The viewer should be able to understand the manufacturing process. That is why Johnen does not remove any traces, but rather leaves material collisions visible so that the viewer can see the manufacturing process. In this way, the artist introduces the concept of time into the space.
Andreas Johnen was born in 1974 in Aachen, Germany. He studied Art in Kassel (masterclass of Prof. Alf Schuler). His works have been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions in Germany and abroad, and can be found in numerous collections.
Bernadette Schockaert, Geometrical Studies (left and centre) - Untitled (right)
Bernadette Schockaert starts her visual experiments by drawing fine lines on handcrafted paper. Inspired by Euclid’s Elements, she created for this exhibition a series of 30 drawings which follow strict geometrical rules, resulting in ever new small constructions from which different surfaces and unforeseen configurations emerge. As the artist states: “Je me suis laissé tenter par la pureté des lignes et la complexité des mélanges formels. Mes dessins sont construits telles des ouvertures vers des configurations imprévues. Les compositions qui en résultent dépassent mon imagination et ne cessent de me captiver ».
Like a musical composer, she rigorously follows her intuition to create harmonies, producing an equilibrium which, line by line, becomes her personal visual language. Colours introduce a fine notion of space and volume which she sometimes translates into sculptures.
Bernadette Schockaert was born in Ghent in 1945. She studied at the Hoger Sint Lucas Instituut in Ghent - Department of Visual Arts. She taught at the same school between 1976 and 2005. Her works have been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions, mainly in Belgium.
Christin Wilcken, Feuer (2023) (left), Dämmerung (2018) (centre), Sonnenlauf (2024) (right)
(photo credits: R. März, H.W. Fichter, Th. Häntzschel)
In Path of the Sun, Christin Wilcken captured sunspots onto sheets of paper lying under the leafy canopy of an old cherry tree. By drawing over them, she transformed the immaterial waves of light into graphite dust, producing fine lines and shapes. “Hang a piece of sky on a wall and look at it calmly”, as she stated in an interview; time is suspended.
Like during the period of Romanticism, Christin Wilcken transforms the experience of nature into contemporary artistic imagery, thereby stretching the limits of current drawing practice towards experimental formats, which include space and the perspective of the viewer. The starting point is always nature as she experiences it. She does not just reproduce what she sees, but rather invents new forms of visualisation and she invites viewers into a kind of meditation, taking a deeper look at what is there and entering into a relationship with what one sees and what surrounds us. The smaller works from the Fire and Twilight series show further aspects of the artist’s research into natural elements, highlighting light and darkness, space and colour, using lines and forms to stir everyone’s imagination.
Christin Wilcken was born 1982 in Güstrow (Germany). She studied Communication Sciences at the University of Greifswald (B.A.), and Visual Arts at the Caspar David Friedrich Institute of the University of Greifswald (M.A.) with a focus on drawing and print. Her works have been exhibited in Germany and abroad in many solo and group exhibitions, including at the Kunsthalle Rostock in 2024; they can be found in many private and public collections. The artist lives and works in Rostock and Mühl Rosin, Germany.