Ka­rin Knef­fel. Face of a Wo­man, Head of a Child

Monumental paintings with picture-filling, ripe apples and grapes (which were already exhibited in the Franz Gertsch Museum as part of a collection presentation in 2013/14) have made Karin Kneffel internationally famous. They not only show pure fruit, but also function as frugal temptation and beguilement.

They work on a low-threshold, intuitive level for viewers and evoke symbolic associations of seduction and fertility. Thanks to her pictures with clear messages, strong colors and extreme realism, Karin Kneffel is today one of the most successful and independent painters in Europe.

After the first stop at the Museum Kurhaus Kleve (2023/24), Karin Kneffel will also be presenting her new series of works in Burgdorf, which have not previously been shown in museums and which she created during the isolation caused by the coronavirus in recent years. With a few previous exceptions, the artist is making the human image her subject for the first time.

She paints Madonna statues from the 15th to 16th centuries with a special colored version that she found at home and abroad, especially in Italy and Romania. She concentrates exclusively on the faces and heads of the figures. The new works each consist of a diptych, the face of the Virgin Mary and the head with bust of the associated baby Jesus.

A variety of references become clear between the sculptural faces: the ecstasy or rapture of the Marys as they look down on their child Jesus, reflecting both their own role as Mother of God and the compassion and mercy in the face of their child's fate.

The children, in turn, reflect childlike cheerfulness, loving devotion or prophetic foresight. Karin Kneffel's new group of works, the Madonnas, deals with this religiously and art-historically charged topic in a modern and complex way.

In addition to the central group of works of the Madonna pictures, the exhibition is supplemented by other works by Karin Kneffel, so that the presentation has a religious but also existential component.

You can see fruit pictures, but also pictures with Jesus figures, candle pictures, fire pictures, drop pictures and more. For the first time ever, pictures of Joseph can be seen, whom Karin Kneffel painted not because of his Christian connotations, but because - as Kneffel says - he "raised an illegitimate child".

Born in Marl (D) in 1957, Karin Kneffel now lives and works in Düsseldorf. Before she turned to fine art, she studied German and philosophy in Münster and Duisburg-Essen, which gave her the necessary tools for her complex visual worlds. At the Düsseldorf Art Academy she studied with Johannes Brus and Norbert Tadeusz.

She finally completed her studies as a master student with Gerhard Richter, whose motifs she painted in fragments or quoted in an art-historical manner. With the Lingen Art Prize and as a scholarship holder at the Villa Massimo in Rome, Kneffel received prizes and awards early on. She taught, among others, at the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavik, Iceland, at the University of the Arts in Bremen and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.

An exhibition by the Museum Kurhaus Kleve – Ewald Mataré Collection, Kleve (D) in cooperation with the Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf (CH). The exhibition was curated by Valentina Vlašić and Anna Wesle in collaboration with the artist.

The exhibition is under the patronage of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bern.

With kind support from Schönewald, Düsseldorf.

Source:thurgaukultur.ch - the culture portal for Thurgau, with dates, topics and people to talk about.