Landstrich, oil on canvas, 63 x 94 1/2 inches
Summer, oil on canvas, 63 x 86 inches
Homage to David Caspar Friedrich,
2007, oil on canvas, 86 x 94 inches
In the Country, oil on canvas, 63 x 86 inches
Clod of Earth, oil on canvas, 86 x 63 inches
The Wind Swept Through the Fields, Gently Billowing the Grain, oil on canvas, 86 x 63 inches
At the Sea, oil on canvas, 86 x 94 inches
Mueritz (landscape), oil on canvas, 63 x 94.5 inches
Bluebird, oil on canvas, 86.5 x 94.5
Trauerweide (Weeping Willow), oil on canvas, 86.5 x 94.5
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“Silke Schoener”
August 30 – September 26, 2007
“My interest is centered on making the unreal or unnamed perceivable on the white surface of the picture by means of virtualized reality.” – Silke Schoener
Encouraging one to freely roam within her serene, two-dimensional landscapes, Silke Schoener seeks to spark the viewer’s imagination. But in order to discover the true meaning of each work, the viewer must delve further than simply looking at the painting’s compositional elements. Conceptual art in the guise of traditional painting, the work itself becomes a stage ready for one’s own imagination to play. The paintings allow for a myriad of interpretation as the artist’s repeated use of white paint makes the viewer, not the artist, complete the picture.
I see myself fully involved in the picture, but who or what influences the final result cannot be determined. Of course, contents, atmospheres, and ability can be the subject of discussion. But at the point where language stops, where philosophy and psychology approach the intangible, it is the artist's aim to use colors and canvas to picture the leap into other dimensions – to represent it, make it perceptible, and to become the material cornucopia for the spiritual.
The negative or white space lets the viewer develop a multitude of images in the mind’s eye, but it also allows for an awareness to be placed upon the stroke of the artist’s brush. To further this effect, Schoener employs a minimalist approach to action and content as well a monochromatic palette of color.
Silke Schoener was born in 1968 in Krefeld, Germany and currently resides in Kassel. She attended art school in Kassel and Dresden from 1988-94.
Dillon Gallery is pleased to present Silke Schoener’s inaugural exhibition in the United States.
“Silke Schoener”
August 30 – September 26, 2007
“My interest is centered on making the unreal or unnamed perceivable on the white surface of the picture by means of virtualized reality.” – Silke Schoener
Encouraging one to freely roam within her serene, two-dimensional landscapes, Silke Schoener seeks to spark the viewer’s imagination. But in order to discover the true meaning of each work, the viewer must delve further than simply looking at the painting’s compositional elements. Conceptual art in the guise of traditional painting, the work itself becomes a stage ready for one’s own imagination to play. The paintings allow for a myriad of interpretation as the artist’s repeated use of white paint makes the viewer, not the artist, complete the picture.
I see myself fully involved in the picture, but who or what influences the final result cannot be determined. Of course, contents, atmospheres, and ability can be the subject of discussion. But at the point where language stops, where philosophy and psychology approach the intangible, it is the artist's aim to use colors and canvas to picture the leap into other dimensions – to represent it, make it perceptible, and to become the material cornucopia for the spiritual.
The negative or white space lets the viewer develop a multitude of images in the mind’s eye, but it also allows for an awareness to be placed upon the stroke of the artist’s brush. To further this effect, Schoener employs a minimalist approach to action and content as well a monochromatic palette of color.
Silke Schoener was born in 1968 in Krefeld, Germany and currently resides in Kassel. She attended art school in Kassel and Dresden from 1988-94.
Dillon Gallery is pleased to present Silke Schoener’s inaugural exhibition in the United States.
SILKE SCHÖNER
Schöner has a BFA from Dresden Art School, 1991 and an MFA from Kassel Art School. Though she is from the far west of Germany, Schöner went east to study in Dresden soon after the Wall came down. Under the influence of the Leipzig school, she was exposed to an unbroken tradition of figurative painting that had oddly been protected behind the iron curtain during a time when this type of academic training had virtually disappeared in the west. This influence can be detected in her confident drawing, her strong compositional sense and her freedom from false gestures.Schöner’s deep engagement with the landscape of her native Germany focuses on the pictorial tension between the explicit and the implied, the seen and the unseen. Her canvases are panoramas of openness with long ribbons of detailed landscape unfurled across a stark white ground, leaving the viewer free to extrapolate what is left unstated. She says of her work: “In my landscape paintings, I try to find a state of open space and tranquility that resembles deep breathing.” All of her canvases begin with a pencil sketch of the entire scene, yet the sketch does not dictate the end result. Much of that drawing will remain unfinished, a barely visible presence, appearing only as the viewer approaches. Her work has been exhibited widely in Europe, Japan and the United States.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- 2011 Dillon Gallery, Color in White, New York City
- 2009 Dillon Gallery, New Paintings, New York City
- 2008 Gallery Strenger, Tokyo, Japan
- 2007 Dillon Gallery, New Paintings, New York City
- 2006 Gallery Ulrich Gering, Frankfurt, Germany
- 2005 Olvier Ahlers Gallery, Goettingen, Germany
- 1999 Hafemann Gallery, Wiesbaden, Germany