Kerstin Grimm at Kunstsammlung Jena

Der 7. Brunnen. Drawing collages and sculptures

Opening Thursday, 19 September 2024, 7 pm

Anyone entering the fictional world of Kerstin Grimm’s paintings will witness unexpected encounters with girls, animals and demons, among trees, craters and demolished electricity pylons in barren, vast landscapes. If titles such as ‘Children’s Games’, the figures drawn with delicate lines and the sensitive use of colour initially evoke promises of beauty or promises of fairytale-like, romantic fulfilment of longing, it soon becomes clear that, far from idyllic scenes and the clichés of childlike innocence, this cosmos follows its very own laws. Where shadows turn white, games of hide-and-seek end with bodies hanging in willows and ladders lead to skies criss-crossed by drones and comets, the unknown, indeed the uncanny, awaits.

With their surprising details, ambiguous actions and mysterious constellations drawn from mythology and art history as well as the present day, Kerstin Grimm’s collages of drawings encourage us to take a closer, more searching look. The Berlin artist herself creates the material from which the often astonishingly large-format collages are composed. She draws and paints on different, often transparent, sometimes glossy papers, gluing and reworking them until the scenic scenes take on their dubious depth.

Kerstin Grimm’s signature is distinctive, and not only in her paintings. Since studying sculpture at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee in 1982, the artist has also been realising her creatures in sculpture. Both drawing collage and sculpture have existed in parallel ever since. How they complement each other can be observed in Kerstin Grimm’s solo exhibition, where peculiar bronze figures swaying on thin rods accompany the protagonists of the pictures. The aura of the demonic seems to wander back and forth between all the creatures.