Almut Heise / Jakob Mattner

About

The exploration of darkness and light is the leitmotif in Mattner’s œuvre. Sculptures, light installations, paintings behind glass, on paper as well as collotypes produced by the Lichtdruckwerkstatt in Leipzig will be presented.
“These are images that use the forces, which tell of the forces, which depict the forces that created man. That have created life. Above all, they are images that speak of light and the power of light.” (Prof. Dr. Christoph Wulf, Centre for Historical Anthropology, FU Berlin).

The early and late works by Almut Heise (*1944 in Celle) are staged realities: she meticulously and accurately paints elaborately constructed interiors filled with furniture, lamps, rugs, wallpaper and objects with a 1950’s charm. Despite the apparent realism, it is immediately clear that the strangely lifeless spaces are composed and were never inhabited. Each object has its allocated place.

In addition to interiors she portrays men and women – insightfully and yet with indifference. Seemingly natural poses are minutely contrived and follow a strict pictorial arrangement. Even the people blend into the bourgeois world from the Adenauer era in which Heise’s images return us to.

Thanks to the comprehensive selection of oil paintings and works on paper, this exhibition provides a rare opportunity to study the development of her work from the late 1960s to the present day. She remains unwaveringly loyal to her style (which can be placed somewhere between “Neue Sachlichkeit”, American pop art and photo realism) despite the changing trends in visual art. Thus, this presentation emphatically demonstrates the singularity of Heise’s œuvre.