Julia Gröning and Marie-Charlotte Nouza ‘Privacy Please'

About

Gröning’s photographs capture uncanny, secret moments in the lives of her subjects. In the work ‘Nacht’ an unidentified arm tightly hugs a tree in the middle of the woods. The brightly lit tree and arm within the surrounding darkness is reminiscent of a scene from a David Lynch film, humorous but unsettling. 

Other surreal moments include a head caught in a turtleneck sweater ‘Rollkragen’, a figure hiding underneath a jacket in a corner ‘Schwimmbad’ or someone crouching in a small suitcase ‘Koffer’. 

Nouza’s large-scale paintings, for example, ‘Sisterhood’, are of quiet moments between women - private, non-sexualized encounters rarely given attention in the artworld. Nouza’s ouvre extends beyond these private interiors to include small, jewel-like paintings of animals, based on images captured at night by infra-red cameras. In her work ‘The Wood’, the animals appear shocked by our presence, preferring the privacy of the dark night to our prying eyes and the bright flash.                                                             

Nouza’s paintings often begin with photographs, occasionally taken by herself, more often found online or old postcards. She prefers working from a quick snapshot to long sessions of sketching her models. After working in painting restoration, a task requiring precision and control, Nouza now likes to allow for the unexpected to occur during painting, to avoid photo realistic perfection. 

Julia Gröning was born in Mönchengladbach in 1980. She studied fine arts at the Kunstakademie Münster and was a Meisterschülerin (Master class) of Professor Daniele Buetti. She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Germany and abroad. 

Marie-Charlotte Nouza was born in 1989 in Alès, France. She attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Montpellier, France where she studied painting. Nouza has shown in many group and solo exhibitions in France and Berlin, as well exhibiting in the United States and Turkey.