Susanna Storch: Facades

About

Highgate Gallery is delighted to be hosting the first ever London show of German artist Susanna Storch, whose exhibition comes to us from the Zofia Weiss Gallery in Cracow.

Susanna’s striking, large-scale paintings in acrylic reveal randomly observed scenes of everyday life, in an urban context.  Both people and buildings form her subject matter, and are given equal attention as we glimpse into the lives of the anonymous inhabitants of the city, whether it is Paris, Prague, London, Santiago de Chile, Valparaiso, Frankfurt, Tallin or her home town of Mainz.  Windows create the border between public and private space, and offer almost no view of the rooms behind.  This tension between the visible and the invisible give the paintings a narrative quality, as if one is watching a story about to unfold.  Reflections on the window panes, and curtain drapery, add a fluidity to the harsh geometry of the architectural exteriors, as well as offering a reflection of life back to the viewer.

Susanna has been developing her style, which she describes as Figurative Realism, since studying in Munich and Mainz in the 1980s.  She is also a portrait painter, and with both her Facades and her portraits, photographs form the basis of the pictures, which are worked up back in the studio.  She is a prolific artist who has exhibited in over 50 shows and art fairs since 2001, and she has work in public museums as well as private collections.