As I was hunting for apartments one afternoon, I stumbled upon Supermarkt, an artists run space on Brunnenstraße. This is where I saw Susane’s mountains paintings first. As much as I found the whole show pretty uneventful, her tiny oils on canvas were on the other hand quite extraordinary. I liked the palette, the urgency of the strokes and the delicate way she was settling and finding her marks on the diminutive canvas. The survey aspect of the series reminded me of Mary Weatherford’s very study of the same large rock on the Malibu coast and subsequent exhibition I had seen at Sister, Los Angeles, in 2006. Upon meeting Susane, she told me that this particular series was inspired by the suicide of German billionaire Adolf Merckle last January. I am quoting this article from the TIME.
“Though he led a quiet life, mountain-climbing being among his few personal passions, Merckle was thrust into the headlines in November as it emerged that he lost several hundred million euros when he got caught on the losing end of a short sale of Volkswagen shares. It is believed that he lost as much as €500 million.”
Susane became intrigued and fascinated by the idea that this man was a mountain climber and by the profound metaphors embedded with this very activity. Having worked mostly with watercolors and paper, she started maneuvering with oils and canvas over the Fall and decided to continue further with this new medium for the mountains series. Now, I am really curious to see where she will bring her work next and I am hoping to catch it hung again soon.
Susane Bergstaedt is an artist from Hamburg currently living and working in Berlin.
–
–
One Comment
these are amazing oils… they make me want to sit down and paint right now. and i love the story of the billionaire mountain climber.