How do you position yourself?
Collecting sticks, dead branches, and iron rods in the forest on Petersinsel or Île Saint-Pierre, on Lake Bie in Bern, Martin Chramosta followed in the footsteps of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s exile. Walking through the woods, observing nature in communion with it, is pretty romantic.
Martin uses natural and found objects as the originals from which he casts his sculptures in relief. The imprint of this particular bond aligns with a belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a spiritual essence. Within this is revealed an animistic mysticism inherent in the works.
During the production of his works Martin was thinking of Friedrich Schiller’s Die Räuber (1781). The play, featuring two aristocratic brothers, Karl who quests for money and power, and Franz who attempts to provoke revolutionary anarchy in the Bohemian Forest, is an illustration of the failures of patriarchal authority.
How do you position yourself?
Katharina Höglinger depicts interior scenes, still lifes, and portraits in which patterns repeat. Her works invite us to reinterpret our way of living in the present and being in the world. In the com- positions, symbols repeat in patterns that build myths and lean towards ritual. In reaction to the standardization of materialism, and beyond objectification, the individual is invited to take space and find their way somewhere.
Lines, objects, and fragmented or contorted bodies tell stories combining domestic, mythological, and universal narratives. Projections of subconscious postures meet original signs that are allegories of ecstatic life.
Both artists approach profound questions through meditative and mystic experiences. It’s all a matter of attitude, freed and playful. What looks like an interior universe could actually occur outside, and vice versa. It’s a nod to dream and a provocation to take action.
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