Biological Signs

Reiner Maria Matysik, sculptures and installation
Ute Wöllmann, Painting

Vernissage: Thursday, 29 November 2018 at 7 pm
Exhibition duration: 30.11.2018 - 18.1.2019
Artist talk Reiner Maria Matysik with Ute Wöllmann on Friday, 18 January 2019 at 6 pm

Opening hours: Mon - Fri 9.30 am - 12.30 pm, Mon, Tue, Thu 2.30 pm - 5.00 pm and at any time by appointment

Forms of biology are the theme of this exhibition. While Reiner Maria Matysik uses a scientific discourse to continue evolution with artistic means and develops and describes new biological forms, Ute Wöllmann draws attention to existing but often overlooked or unnoticed biological structures. Within the exhibition, an exciting dialogue develops about existing and imagined forms of existence and their materialisation in this world.

Reiner Maria Matysik's work is diverse. It includes sculptures made of modelling clay, plasticine, glass, spatial installations, photography and video art, as well as art in public spaces. Text plays a not insignificant role. As an artist, he operates at the interface between art and science. His artistic concept is based on the assumption that life is in need of improvement and can be optimised through active constructive evolution. Using various materials, he creates models of possible future organisms, the prototype models of post-evolutionary life forms, and investigates and creates their habitats. Matysik's prototype models are embedded in a complexly elaborated cosmos; thoughts on the possibilities of the organic and the social also become texts, graphics and manifestos.

Matysikborn in Duisburg in 1967, graduated from the Braunschweig University of Art. There he founded the Institute for Biological Sculpture (ibiop) in 2003 for the dialogue between scientific knowledge and artistic thinking. In 2004, he was awarded a Barkenhoff scholarship in conjunction with a residency at the Künstlerhäuser Worpswede. In 2009, Matysik was appointed visiting professor for sculpture at the FH KUNST Arnstadt for one year. Since 2016, he has been Professor of Three-Dimensional Design/Material. Form. Object at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle.[1] He lives and works in Berlin.

Ute Wöllmann paints abstract pictures that focus on the sensuality and radicality of colour. In doing so, she refers to nature. She is interested in the simple, the unspectacular in nature, in what is often overlooked: The view into the bushes, into the foliage,
on a piece of meadow. She places things in the centre of attention that are thus rather unknown to the viewer. She is particularly interested in structures, which she transforms into painterly structures using impasto oil paint. Her paintings stand out for their unusual combinations of materials, such as thin watercolours or powdery pastels and impasto oil paint.

Ute Wöllmann was born in Ravensburg in 1962. She studied painting with Professor Georg Baselitz at the Berlin University of the Arts from 1983-89 and was appointed a master student in 1989. This was followed by a one-year scholarship from Volkswagen AG with the opportunity to live and work at the Künstlerhaus Meinersen. In 1990 she founded the artist group GANGart, with whom she realised joint projects until 2000. From 1992-2004 she was a lecturer in painting and drawing at the Freie Kunstschule Berlin and Freie Akademie für Kunst Berlin. In 2005 she founded the Akademie für Malerei Berlin, which she has directed ever since. In 2010 she was a founding member of the producer gallery ROOT am Savignyplatz, from 2010-2014 its managing partner and since 2012 its gallery director. In 2012, Reimer Verlag Berlin published the book "Über die Kunst erfolgreich Malerei zu studieren - Ein Lehrbuch". In 2014 she founded the owner-managed gallery ROOT UG (haftungsbeschränkt), opening the gallery in June 2014. She lives and works in Berlin.

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