From July 11 to August 22, 2009, Berlin Art Projects proudly presents Zwei Sonnen“ a solo exhibition by painter Meike Zopf. The exhibition opens on Friday, July 10, 2009 in the Project Space at Berlin Art Projects, Auguststraße 50b.
Meike Zopf’s mysteriously beautiful, complex paintings seduce as multi-layered contradictions blend and merge on a number of levels: abstract and figurative, illustrative lightness mixed with painterly concentration, the tender and the rugged. New, strange worlds emerge from a mixture of longing and the everyday, surrealism and the real as the foreign become one.
In her most recent work, Zopf develops a unique cosmos of her own. Like tiles in a mosaic, images and symbols of various kinds from various sources are pieced together and juxtaposed, eventually becoming whole. Her paintings are populated by women, men and very often children surrounded by flower ornaments and crystalline structures and Christian iconography and antique mythology; airplanes cross the sky, baby carriage parts float through the frames, hearts reveal themselves – open and vulnerable – as mere pieces of meat while Madonna spreads her black flowered gown for protection. Frequently the symbols are freed from their original context and imbued with new meaning, creating a very personal mythology: a soulful, feminine language of incredible depth and innumerable layers. Many of her female figures appear to be floating, their faces either hidden or incomplete – in this way the individual is backgrounded and the figure becomes a kind of archetype.
A central theme in all of Zopf’s work is life – in all of its contradictions, confusion, dangers – and joys. It has to do with conflicts, with drifting between two poles, between hope and defeat, the need to protect and desire to attack, between isolation and connection, waiting and arriving.
The titles of her paintings speak of “idylls”, of “luminous hours” – but do they reflect a wish or reality? The idyll appears a fragile one at best, constantly threatened by external influences. As Harald Szeemann wrote in 1985, “no idylls without catastrophies, no catastrophies without idylls. “ – and perhaps it is these two opposites, their interdependency, that show how one cannot exist without the other, that life itself is a balancing act.
Meike Zopf, born 1972 in Berlin, studied art at the UdK Berlin and in Hanover under Verena Vernunft and in the master class of Christian Riebe. Her works are exhibited in numerous exhibitions in Germany and internationally. She lives and works in Hanover and Berlin.
ABOUT THE GALLERY
Berlin Art Projects opened its doors in late 2008 in the Auguststrasse, 50b.
Drawing from many years experience in the global art market, its founders have dedicated themselves to supporting the work of emerging and established artists living and working in Berlin. With a program of frequently changing exhibitions and events, the gallery is particularly committed to supporting and encouraging artists as they enter the art international world.
The gallery focus is new tendencies in contemporary painting, with a spectrum of represented works ranging from Christian Awe and Megan Olson’s abstract, drawing-like experiments with color to Sebastian Schrader and Tom Fleischhauer’s realistic figures in precise compositions. All of the gallery artists currently live and work in Berlin, and all are influenced and inspired by the city’s unique atmosphere.
With its two distinct Berlin branches, the gallery currently represents ten artists from Germany, the Netherlands, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey, the United States and South Korea. The project space in the Auguststrasse shows the artists’ latest works in solo exhibitions with an accompanying catalogue, while the spacious showroom on Unter den Linden – in the direct vicinity of Museum Island and the Deutsche Guggenheim – individual works by different artists are placed in dialogue with one another and made accessible to a wider public.
PROJECT SPACE
AUGUSTSTRASSE 50B | D-10119 BERLIN
TEL +49 (0) 30 240 87 606-0
FAX +49 (0) 30 240 87 606-20
[email protected]
WWW.BERLINARTPROJECTS.DE
OPEN
MO-FR 11.00-7.00
SA 12.00-6.00
SO BY APPOINTMENT
SHOWROOM
UNTER DEN LINDEN 40 | D-10117 BERLIN
TEL +49(0)30700 11 86-0
FAX +49(0)30700 11 86-86
[email protected]
WWW.BERLINARTPROJECTS.DE
OPEN
MO-FR 11.00-7.00
SA 12.00-6.00
SO BY APPOINTMENT
Image: Meike Zopf “Still ruht der See” (2008), Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 200 x 220 cm
