English translation. The original text is in Portuguese.
For the first time, Portugal hosts an exhibition by an award-winning German artist
For the first time in Portugal, the renowned German artist Anne Wölk will present her exhibition “The island of stars we call home” at the Casa de Cultura Jaime Lobo e Silva in Ericeira, from June 15 to July 14, 2024. Internationally recognized, Wölk has exhibited in Spain, London, China and the United States.
Nature and Technology in Art
With works that blend nature and technology, the exhibition includes series such as Nebulosa, Planeta Spheres and Extraterrestrial Horizons. Drawing on the techniques of the old masters and on digital culture, Anne creates multidisciplinary paintings that question our relationship with the universe. She explores the contrasts between outer space and human colonizing and scientific activity, using oils, graphite and acrylics on three-dimensional spheres.
“Although my approach to composition is rooted in Romanticism and Photorealism, I subvert these traditional methods of landscape painting through conceptual representations of light and fluid color gradients that allude to the digital photographic media that capture popular images of space; my works depict photographic aberrations, gaps in digital information and compression artifacts caused by the technical limitations of telescopic observation and mechanical photography,” she explains.
Urban Exploration
One of the series stands out for its urban exploration of abandoned places in Eastern Europe, reflecting the contemporary trend of documenting forgotten places and their stories. Anne seeks to capture ephemerality and memory, questioning architectural legacy and the essence of time and place.
“Through painting, the viewer can catch a glimpse of the ephemeral nature and memory of ourselves and of what surrounds us, and preserve them before they are lost in time and space. The artworks raise the question: what do architectural legacies say about society when we leave them adrift? What is the essence of time and place?” says the artist.
The exhibition is curated by Pedro Ramos.
About the artist
Anne Wölk, born in 1982 in Jena, Germany, is a figurative painter influenced by the contemporary realists Vija Celmins and Russel Crotty. Her paintings, which mostly depict the night sky and its galaxies, reflect a multicultural blend of German, Baltic, Russian and American elements, the result of her close exchange with artists from the United States. Internationally recognized, Wölk has won awards such as the ArtPrize ‘Art Takes Paris’ in 2013 and the 9th Artslant Prize in the painting category in 2017. She also took part in the finalists’ exhibition of the Art Revolution competition in Taipei. She currently lives and works in Berlin.