Stilte

SEASON OPENING: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 6-9 PM

We are very pleased to present the third solo exhibition of Swiss artist Tatjana
Gerhard (*1974), who lives and works in Ghent (Belgium).

With hands hiding their features or with merged bodies, the mysterious subjects of Tatjana Gerhard’s latest works are not easy to identify at first glance, and viewers must take their cues from the artist’s suspense-filled imagery. Over the last two years Gerhard has significantly developed her visual vocabulary—both formally and in terms of content—which remains inspired by the mysterious and the strange. The meta-worlds that the artist creates on canvas are characterized by subtle associations and imaginary scenes, which allow viewers to decide what they actually see in the images. The exhibition shows a series of figures and objects that seem to have retreated from the image, leaving behind only their sheaths. The works on view are dominated by masks and torsos. Faces disappear behind hands and masks or dissolve into a dark nothingness; torsos often hover in a space lacking any sense of background. In the artist’s latest works two beings or faces repeatedly merge. Hovering pieces of cloth and doll-like marionettes are become firmly established in Gerhard’s world of images.

On the whole, Tatjana Gerhard’s work has become more serene, as indicated by the title of the exhibition, Stilte (in English, silence). Entering the exhibition, one quickly senses this stillness. A toppled figure covering its mouth, a white, transparent piece of fabric in an airless room, and a dark, hollowed out female upper body immerse viewers in this silence. Whereas in Gerhard’s older works colorful, grotesque figures clamored for attention, the beings and objects in recent works have fallen silent. “These are mental states that have transformed into physical states,” explains the artist.

Text by Ladina Trachsel
Translation Laura Schleussner