Nadine Lohof – Nothing to iron
Solo exhibition at Circle Culture Gallery Berlin. Opening June 22, 2023.
Nadine
Lohof wanders through gestural and psychological references through the
history of art. She is inspired by the baroque of Francois de Troy or
the French realism by Gustave Courbet via Pablo Picasso’s figurative
works and the Dutch genre painting of a Gerard ter Borch (the Younger).
The Berlin artist makes use of numerous motifs and aesthetics of the
history of human representation to defend a very contemporary painterly
position with depth.
In Nadine Lohof’s painting one experiences
social spaces that resemble theatrical stages. The figures are painted
in a peculiarly rhythmic stroke around tablecloths, on “flying carpets,”
on mattresses, or grouped around scraps of lawn.
The figures in
movement here could be entire families, including pets and neighbors –
all of them rather preoccupied with their reveries, traumas and fears or
wallowing in longings. Some feelings and thoughts of the illustrated
actors could be influenced by each other. Psychographic elements appear
pictorially in the form of decontextualized objects that hover above or
below the vivid pictorial scenes.
The painted human and animal
figures of different genders seem to be in psychosocial relationships
that are always characterized by a certain distance. They stand and sit
together, but barely with each other. It seems like one of the defining
symptoms of our world today, in which many people are looking for ways
of avoiding the healing confrontation with reality and ways of coping
with it. Be that through consumption, conspiracy theories or in the
distraction by digital media. People like to indulge in a certain
escapism. In the family and private sphere this creates a certain
alienation, which in many cases prevents necessary intergenerational
trauma work. In the end, the path to social happiness is obstructed.
In
the painterly spaces of Nadine Lohof, the actors seem to celebrate a
certain belonging to each other. Their fantasies, utopias, relationships
and, in part, even their sexuality. Nadine Lohof delivers a peak
performance of artistry. Through her sensitivity for subcutaneous
states of social relationship structures, she proposes a current
psychogram of our society.
The artist has understood that humor
can be a wonderful vehicle to convey complex contents. It helps us to
laugh about the difficulties of human existence. And as such she paves a
way to more lightness in our lives through her art.
Johann Haehling von Lanzenauer
