SELBSTBILDNIS IN FARBE
NICOLA STAEGLICH
FEB 16 - MAR 24, 2018.
Press release: A
professor of painting at the University of Fine Arts (HBK) in Essen,
the artist already looks back on a 20-year career in which she
established herself primarily as an abstract painter.
Architectonic layers of horizontal and vertical strips of color
alternate with clearly defined forms in motion, such as semicircular
arches and spirals that come alive as the paint flows. With Staeglich’s
work series, “Transparencies,” and her use of a new type of substrate,
acrylic sheets, the light comes into focus as a physical phenomenon and
as a medium that determines the essence of painting. At the same time,
the transparent sheet also liberates as well as presents Staeglich’s
painterly actions in terms of an autonomous and ritualistic type of
mimesis.
"Painting on a transparent substrate such as an
acrylic sheet provides me with the highest degree of luminosity and the
strongest contrasts that color can offer. It’s as if my keyboard had
previously unsuspected octaves at its disposal. (…) In my
"Transparencies", color is located behind the transparent and reflective
surface of the sheet – in the distance between it and the wall. (…) The
projection of color as well as the deposit of more increments of paint
make for a complex type of color perception inflected by time and space.
(…) I am driven by the desire to make colors float because then they
become immaterial and space becomes infinite."
Nicola
Staeglich (born 1970 in Oldenburg) studied fine arts at Johannes
Gutenberg University Mainz (Meisterschülerin at Prof. Friedemann Hahn,
1997) and at the Städelschule Frankfurt (at Prof. Raimer Jochims,
1993-95). She also received her MA at the Fine Art Chelsea College of
Art & Design in London (1997-98).
Staeglich holds several grants
and scholarships such as the British Academy Award (1997/98), an artist
in residence at Villa Serpentara by Akademie der Künste Berlin (2004)
and in Pasadena, Los Angeles by the Senat Berlin (2005/2006) as well as
an art scholarship from the Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn (2005) etc.. After
several lectureships, Nicola Staeglich is a professor for painting and
drawing at the HBK Essen (since 2015)
The artist‘s work had been
shown in several solo shows including at Lisa Norris Gallery London
(2015), Kunstverein Schwäbisch Hall and Stadtmuseum Oldenburg (both
2014), Kunstverein Duisburg (2012), Goethe Institute Washington (2006),
Galerie Wittenbrink München (since 2005) and others. Nicola Staeglich
also participated in several group shows such as at Kunstverein
Gelsenkirchen (2017), Bendigo Art Gallery Melbourne (2016), Georg Kolbe
Museum Berlin (2013), Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf and Landesmuseum
Oldenburg or Phayao Thailand (all 2013) as well as at Forum Konkrete
Kunst Erfurt (2012), at ZKM Karlsruhe (2008) and others.
