RAPHAELA SIMON. Erdbeeren

About

With simple forms and vibrant colours, Raphaela Simon delicately evokes a pictographic inventory of the ordinary. Simon’s large paintings depict trousers, wristwatches, trash cans, and strawberries, each afloat over hazy, monochromatic backgrounds. While these paintings appear wholly representational, they carry a powerful conceptual undercurrent: Simon achieves a picture-book simplicity that transforms her paintings into recurring motifs of memory and nostalgia, as if these visual totems each possess a forgotten narrative. Her sculptures further complement these themes: stitched together with fabric, wood and wire, a cast of soft mannequins suggest the busy centre of an imaginary village, full of policemen, dogwalkers, and daily commuters. Together, the works in Erdbeerenseem to point not towards realism but rather the essence of the subjects depicted.