Virtual 8: Birgit Luxenburger
08. March - 01. May 2017

Blick in die Ausstellung
Photographed 2004.


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Blick in die Ausstellung

Blick in die Ausstellung

Virtual 8: Birgit Luxenburger

To paint abstract means to me creating complex spaces out of paint on a flat oder relatively flat surface. Some of these images already exist in my head. Others come into being during the process of painting - in the constant interaction between the painting and myself. What interests me is the relationship between positive and negative space, depth, plasticity, transparency, opaqueness ...

When I am out with my camera, a simple excursion can turn into an expedition. Aware of my surroundings - whether nature oder urban settings - I automatically start thinking about my paintings. And sometimes I am surprised to recognize "pictures" that I have painted before. I document these situations by taking a photograph.

Painting has changed how I see. On my "expeditions" I am constantly scanning my surroundings - I can't help it. I examine landscapes and their details, spatial expansion, reflections, the movement of light, a shadow that turns into an autonomous shape and becomes a positive space. Colors grab my attention as well as defined and blurry areas, contours that seem to evaporate or that materialize.

Surprisingly, memories and reality merge. While out and about I discover pictures that I had already created at my studio - either exactly like my own pictures or slightly different. These are moments of astonishment - when I am struck by the similiarity, by the remarkable parallels I see through my object lens.

Are these afterimages? Is nature trying to guide me? Or have I (through painting) trained my sight to see the world in a different way? But I am not even in search of an ideal motif in regards to the real world - which can absolutely be a legitimate quest of some painters. When I am taking photographs I focus on things or situations that I have dealt with in my paintings - in a kind of comparative seeing.

The paintings were there first.

And all the while I thought I was painting abstract phenomena, created with acrylic paint and pigments on various surfaces, timeless phenomena beyond our conceptual world.

- Birgit Luxenburger, February 2017