Susanne Roewer – Alternative Universen
Susanne Roewer’s works combine the artist’s intense interest in materials with an artistic sensibility and conceptual wit. Her sometimes extensive research and observations lead her to historical figures and events, folk art and old fables, but also to current socio-political debates and events. The diversity of the themes reveals the contemporary in the historical, and returns that which is seemingly past back to the present. The humorous titles contrast with the seriousness of the works: the artist thereby challenges the spectator to follow her into the alternative universes of her art.
From the 10th of November onwards, Susanne Roewer will be taking you to “Alternative Universes” – the title of her third solo exhibition at Galerie Kornfeld, featuring new sculptures and works on paper.
For Susanne Roewer, who studied material technology before completing an art degree at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, contemporary sculpture is “the product of the necessary interplay between the capabilities and skills humans have acquired during their long evolution and their desire to render tangible immaterial things like force, transcendence, reason, freedom or love.”
Susanne Roewer’s works combine the artist’s intense interest in materials with artistic sensibility and conceptual wit. Her sometimes extensive research and observations lead her to historical figures and events, folk art and old fables, but also to current socio-political debates and events. The diversity of the themes reveals the contemporary in the historical and returns that which is seemingly past back to the present. The humorous titles contrast with the seriousness of the works: the artist thereby challenges the spectator to follow her into the alternative universes of her art.
Susanne Roewer’s sculptures in particular are rooted in her exploration of elementary materials such as metal, stone, or glass, combining figurative elements with an abstract formal language. During the process of creation, the artist is frequently guided by the material and its specific qualities. Yet this is done consciously, revealing the assurance with which the artist is able to master and shape diverse substances and materials.
Her mastery of different materials and materialities also manifests itself in her works on paper, which combine pen-and-ink drawing with watercolours and collage. Here Susanne Roewer shows herself to be a brilliant and highly sensitive draughtswoman. At the same time, she quite literally coaxes new dimensions from the flat medium of paper, combining the special surfaces of different types of paper with other elements to form almost three-dimensional works.
Susanne Roewer (born 1971 in Bad Schlema) graduated from the master class in sculpture at the Universität der Künste Berlin in 1999. Together with fellow artists Gregor Hildebrand and Marc Pätzold, she founded the G7 Berlin Network Gallery, before moving to Switzerland to collaborate with various collectors and sponsorship programmes. Her works have been exhibited at numerous art associations and institutions, most recently at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art(Indiana, USA, together with Georges Beasley) and the Fondacion Abanico in Geneva (2015). In June 2015, one of her sculptures was displayed at Il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri in Italy. In 2016, another was shown at the Sculpture Park Alfred in New York. In 2018, she will be honoured with a solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Kreis Gütersloh.
