MARIA SCHUMACHER Systems of Evasion

About

SYSTEMS OF EVASION                                 13 March – 16 Mai 2020

Opening                                                          Friday, 13 March 2020, 6 – 9 PM

We are pleased to present SYSTEMS OF EVASION, Maria Schumacher's first solo show at
galerie burster berlin.

Schumacher (*1983 in Bucharest, Romania, based in Leipzig) studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig under Heribert C. Ottersbach and Neo Rauch as well as at the San Francisco Art Institute, USA.

Unbroken color surfaces in red, blue, black, gray, white and yellow, but above all: grids and intersecting lines, sometimes in strictly closed, sometimes in open dynamic arrangements, characterize Schumacher's latest works. Just as in Narrow Passage:

"The canvas is one by two meters in size, a light blue grid covers a white background in oil; the lines painted with a brush are neither particularly precise nor strikingly imprecise for a system of order; 'Above' is a graphic composition of human figures and individual body elements also gridded in blue, that are not knotted but loosely connected to one another. They drift towards each other, none of the parts touch the edge of the picture. As if a cookie cutter had been at work; as if they were saying: There is the world, and we are parts of it.“ (Lina Morawetz, All the whales in the wider deeps)

What is the relationship between us human beings and the world in times of neoliberal constraints and an omnipresent culture of communication, and how is it possible, if at all, to press this relationship into a picture through painterly gestures and graphic compositions?

If one understands the absurd, based on Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus, as the bond that connects us human beings with the world, then it is Schumacher's works that can perhaps make this bond tangible and visible for a moment.

Her works show our constant conflict between the essential search for meaning and hopeless meaninglessness and at the same time counter this absurdity in fearless clumsiness and in deep mistrust of human ideals, absolute self-control or absolute control of a thing.

"Although there is a form of attachment in all of Maria's paintings, the paintings are anything but indecisive. They are inclined towards the fearless, the savage, and in their intrepidity they do not dwell on pleasantries" (Lina Morawetz, All the whales in the wider deeps)

However, one will search in vain for a clear offer of reception in Schumacher's works. Rather, through the dynamic, multifaceted application of her very own methods, the "SYSTEMS OF EVASION", it seems to continually elude tangibility and thus shows many parallels to the nature of our present day reality.