Constructions on Colour
By Joaquim-Borda Pedreira, 2012Galleri BOA, Oslo, Norway
Exhibition with artists Marisa Ferreira and Susanne K. Mader
Already in its earliest incarnations, the modernist avant-garde made equations between musical composition and abstract painting. It is plausible to suggest that it was within music that a conceptual language for the abstract composition was first developed. In her work, Susanne Kathlen Mader (b. 1964 in Germany) re-asserts this connection as she constructs unquestionably precise geometrical compositions that seem to almost balance on a nanoscopic scale. That apparent strive for perfection is superficially akin to the utopian ambitions of such predecessors from De Stij to the Bauhaus School and other subsequent movements of concrete art. They struggled to break away from the bonds of representation, a project that still seems less than fulfilled. Seen against this background, Susanne Kathlen Mader does not offer a continuation but rather a re-interpretation of an. Her works, whether painted on boards or directly on the wall, centre on the distribution of space, often even extending beyond the picture plane as she allows tri-dimensional elements protrude from the picture plane. Her compositions are superficially explorations of geometric forms, but on closer examination it is revealed that Mader actually undermines, rejects even, the stability of geometric law. She accomplishes perfect balance and exactitude with asymmetric forms and interrupted lines. Her compositional theory is not based on mathematics, but rather follows musical epistemology with its concepts of atonality, counterpoint and harmony.
Unlike concrete art, Mader’s works are never flat and two-dimensional; on the contrary she excels in creating depth and density with colour fields and lines, playing both with our perceptions and our expectations. Marisa Ferreira (b. 1983 in Portugal), also works with colour and space, yet her use of geometry is entirely mathematical. In fact the artist makes use of highly sophisticated mathematical calculations to render the patterns and forms that constitute her ‘algorithmic’ work. As such it avoids art historical references and has little to do with either concrete or Op art. Ferreira has a scientific approach and rejects illusion as a trick, but rather relies on the effects of contrasting colour and mathematical variation. Ferreira builds her compositions after careful research, constructing reliefs from painted wood blocks. Rather than creating an illusion of perception – in the mind of the beholder – her work forces the viewer to become conscious of his or her presence in the space, as the works never have a neutral point of view. Depending on the viewers’ position the work will change its pattern and colours, activating the space, altering the experience of it. Marisa Ferreira makes us aware of our own subjectivity, as two people viewing the same painting and at the same time can have a completely opposite experience – where one sees blue the other sees red. This social implication takes Ferreira’s works out of the purely scientific world and into the cultural sphere.
It is the diametrically opposed artistic methods between Susanne Kathlen Mader and Marisa Ferreira that make their encounter unexpectedly fruitful. Together they show us the urgency of geometric abstract art and the strength of their conceptual approach to painting. The exhibition at BOA may not be collaboration in the strictest sense, yet it proves that artistic encounters can enrich the individual practise as well as the exhibition visitor’s understanding.
