´LOB DES RAUMES II`, (für Platon) / IN PRAISE OF THE SPACE II (for Plato)

writing by Karen Zadra for the online exhibition `LOB DES RAUMES II (für Platon), 14.10.2019-14.12.2019

Claudia Larissa Artz continues her investigation into the concepts of surface (texture) and line (space) with this series of pigments and watercolour on paper, Lob des Raumes II (In praise of the space).
In these recent works, Artz’s use of geometry reminds of humankind’s striving for perfection and pure intellectual transcendence. It links us to the abstract, the conceptual world of mathematics, science, navigation and architectural drawing. This is a place of exactitude and a reduction to the absolute minimum: a line, precisely drawn onto the paper with a sharpened pencil. Geometry, then, stands as a representation of our intellectual life.
Conversely, Artz’s delicately textured application of pigments, eggtempera and watercolour evoke our emotional life: organic, individual, unpredictable, difficult to predetermine and control. As with her pigments, we can never fully know how we will respond emotionally to an event. We may have preconceptions, but we can never really know our emotional reactions until we are in the midst of them, and then, it is not always easy to control them. There always exists a tension between our conscious will (mind) and our emotional reactions (heart).
With the methodological thoroughness of a scientist, Artz sets up her series of investigations to determine just how texture and line intersect, and how they might be reconciled, if at all. It is a mirror of each of us practice daily as we try to balance the workings of our mind and emotions; sometimes we find equilibrium, and other times one takes pecedence.
The perplexing questions, as with Artz’s artistic question of line vs texture, are: can they merge, and if so, what do they become?

copywrite Karen Zadra, 2019