Susanne Roewer Germany, b. 1971

Susanne Roewer was born in 1971 in Bad Schlema, Germany, and lives and works in Berlin. Her formation is exceptional in its breadth: she began undergraduate studies in material sciences, specialising in non-metallic inorganic materials, at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, before redirecting her path toward art. She went on to study sculpture and graphic art at the Universität der Künste Berlin, graduating in 1999 with the Meisterschüler degree, the highest distinction of the German academy system. This dual grounding in the science of materials and the practice of sculpture is foundational to her work: Roewer approaches her chosen materials, metal, stone, and glass, with both technical command and artistic sensibility, understanding their physical properties as expressive possibilities rather than constraints.

Roewer's sculptures emerge from stories. Each work is triggered by a poetic dimension of human life and society, whether absurd or romantic, heroic or political, intimate or universal. Her practice draws on extensive research into historical figures and events, folk art, fable, and contemporary socio-political debate, translating these investigations into three-dimensional form with conceptual wit and material intelligence. Her sculptures combine figurative and abstract elements in ways that resist easy categorisation, occupying a space between narrative and formal inquiry. She has described her practice as rooted in the conviction that sculpture is the necessary outcome of thousands of years of human skill, trial, and error, and of the enduring human will to give immaterial things a material expression.

Following her studies, Roewer co-founded an artist-run exhibition space in Berlin, dedicated to projects developed by artists for artists. She subsequently relocated to Switzerland for several years, pursuing investigations in new materials supported by collectors and art programmes, before returning to Berlin. She has completed four art-within-architecture commissions and has undertaken residencies in Tasmania, California, Florida, Indiana, and Scotland, each of which has fed into the material and thematic range of her practice.

Roewer's exhibition history spans institutions and venues across Europe and North America. Her work has been shown in museum and institutional contexts in the United States and Europe, including presentations in Indiana, Los Angeles, and Germany, as well as in sculpture and garden settings in Italy and Switzerland. The Diözesanmuseum Rottenburg presented her work in the Meet the Artist series under the title Greifbar Zart.

KORNFELD Galerie Berlin has presented her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions over many years. Solo and featured presentations at the gallery include Alternative Universen (November 2017 to January 2018), (I AM) BUSY CATCHING FALLING STARS, and Acqua d'Oro. Duo exhibitions at the gallery have included presentations in 2019 and the exhibition Make It Your Own Story (2021). Roewer has also participated in group exhibitions at the gallery, including Lebensguss and Paper Plains. Her practice continues to evolve through the intersection of material research, narrative imagination, and sculptural form.