Untitled
Ingeborg zu Schleswig-Holstein
2011
303 cm x 185 cm
Oil and mixed media on canvas
The untitled painting by Ingeborg zu Schleswig-Holstein is a large size painting in portrait format. Principally it is oil on canvas, whereas the grey colour of the ground is enriched with glass dust. This has the result that its surface reflects the light depending of the angle of incidence. In contrast to the grey reflecting ground stands the pink more or less semicircular form in the centre of the image. The varying paint application from rosé over pink to dark red is in itself matt, partly opaque. It shines only through the brilliance of the colour itself.
Although the central figure, which reminds a decreasing crescent is not totally centred and even the lower tip extend beyond the upper one, it is fully anchored in the image plan. This is due to its projecting forms. At the left and lower “external” edge of the pink sickle, there are dark red splashes, mixed with some lighter ones. Some finer pink projections are as well at the right “inner” edge, but they leave space to allow the light grey ground to shimmer through. To the right of this area is a permeable zone: it is more rosé by an impression of watercolour and by the grey lines which traverse it in the direction of the right edge of the painting. There they meet an irregular red/pink line, which takes the two upper thirds of the image border and narrows to the lower part.
There are many ways to “enter” the picture. Despite different possible reading directions, depending of the individual habit and the incidence of light, the observer will mostly always reach the central form. Once arrived here the onlooker is once again thrown back to his/ her own perception.
Traditionally one might start to wander the painting from the left to the right. Some of the colour splashes would invite to carry on by their direction, but others are blocking the way. The view is bounced by the dark red speckles and falls down out of the image with the lighter pink ones.
The more courageous observer will jump over the red front or enter the pink crescent from above. Arrived here, he/she could pause or be pulled by the lighter outside of the form. The grey lines in the rosé colour field will guide to the right edge, but the red line at the image border might throw him/her back to the central form.
Nevertheless, one could enter the painting as well through the right, because the colour gradient from red through rosé ending somewhere in a light grey has a force of attraction, especially when the lightning direction assists to this. Then the onlooker would arrive in the sparkling light zone. He/she will benefit from the glass dust enriched grey ground and find more than the two dimensions of the painting. Perhaps one might be drawn so strong to jump into the pink and even further, but since there is no strong force pulling to the left edge he/she will soon be back in the centre of the painting.
There surely are many other possibilities to immerse the painting of Ingeborg; for example through the grey to silver shining ground lines, which create, depending from the angle of light incidence, the illusion of space. However, everyone open to take up the challenge will find his/her own way.
Ingeborg zu Schleswig-Holstein
Born 1956 in Bienebeck, Germany, studied design and painting with Professor Manfried Grossmann at the Fachhochschule für Gestaltung (University of Art and Design) in Hamburg (Germany). She graduated in 1981 as book illustrator and left Germany to become assistant in Andy Warhol’s Factory in New York. Besides she opened her studio as painter and had soon her first exhibitions in the city, but as well in England and Germany.
1984, back in Hamburg Ingeborg got the commission for a cycle of images for the church Sankt Katharinen, her first project where she had to deal as well with space. “Weg ins Licht” (Way into the Light) inspired the Polish composer Augustyn Bloch to the religious oratorio “Denn Dein Licht kommt” (And Your Light Cometh), premiered 1988 in Sankt Katharinen. This was the point of departure for a longstanding cooperation on the base that Ingeborg perceives music as colours and Augustyn Bloch thought of colours having their own sound.
In addition to her individual works, she often realises religious projects for sacral edifices. One of them is the chapel Sa Barrala, Majorca, Spain, where she designed in 2002 the entire interior space. The religious aspect in her works is due to her artistic research. Ingeborg doesn’t want to tell a story with her paintings. It is more a research of the eternal truth, about the essence which is behind things and life. It is up to the viewer “to be free enough to comprehend my work of art on an individual scale.” she stated on her website.
In consequence the paintings are abstract. They are the result of a concentrated work on colours on a picture surface. Some gestures of the painter might be spontaneous, but essentially the colours are put in by the intention to find a new, consistent expression. Thereby, she let herself be guided by the image itself. This method might be as well one of the reasons for her preference of huge formats: it gives her intense colours the possibility to extend and communicate, without disturbing each other. So the genesis of her paintings is a long one. Generally Ingeborg works on several paintings at the same time, often series. Nevertheless, each part of a sequence has to stand on its own.
Since her first exhibition in 1982, Ingeborg had an enormous number of individual and group exhibitions. Besides her initial exposing countries United States, England and Germany her shows are situated in Poland, Russia, Spain, France, China, Lithuania, Iceland and Morocco. In 2014 her works were first presented in Bologna by the Berlin based Werkstattgalerie at the SetUp Art Fair. A year later she was back in the group exhibition “Macrocosmi Bologna” at the CUBO Unipol Center Bologna. Currently her works are to be seen once again in the same city at the Spazio Testoni. Here they are in dialogue with in situ wall paintings by Ester Grossi where they can communicate “Deep down inside the Color” (until 26 March 2016).
www.ingeborg-zu-schleswig-holstein.org
Spazio Testoni
(in cooperation with the Werkstattgalerie Berlin)
Via D’Azeglio 50, Bologna
www.spaziotestoni.it
www.werkstattgalerie.org
16 January – 26 March 2016
Ingeborg zu Schleswig-Holstein & Ester Grossi: Deep down inside the Color