Helene Appel
Among Trees, Among Sand Grains
Helene Appel
Among Trees, Among Sand Grains
German, English
2023. 128 pp., 60 ills.
Hardcover
23.00 x 28.00 cm
ISBN 978-3-7757-5259-6
Representations of Our Relation to the Environment
In her painting, Helene Appel reflects the things of everyday life with high precision. Appel presents her cropped subjects in plan view, on untreated canvas in a 1:1 scale. If one takes a closer look, though, this attitude reveals its radical nature. Detaching herself completely from the tradition of still life, Appel does not strive to develop a painterly signature, nor does she emphasize her distinctive ductus. Instead, she carefully seeks an adequate mode of expression for each of her pictorial objects, thus emphasizing their particular physical presence. Despite the realistic representation, Appel's works evoke a sense of a high degree of abstraction. The impression is that of a distanced look that creates a tension between the familiar and the unaccustomed questioning the relationship we have to our environment.
HELENE APPEL (*1976, Karlsruhe) studied at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg and at London's Royal College of Art. She received the distinguished Goslar Kaiserring Scholarship in 2011, and the two-year Dorothea Erxleben Scholarship of the Braunschweig University of Art in 2019. Appel lives and works in Berlin.
EXHIBITIONS
Haus Coburg. Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst
February 5–March 3, 2022
Touchstones Rochdale
May–August 2023
