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Kim Bartelt
Break Easy, Milan, 17 May - 30 June 2023

Kim Bartelt: Break Easy

Past exhibition
  • Larger Works
  • Smaller Works
  • Sculptures
  • Studio Shots
  • Installation Shots
  • Press Release and E-Catalogue
  • Cadogan Gallery is delighted to present Break Easy, an exhibition of new works by German artist Kim Bartelt. This will...
    Image by Clemens Poloczek

    Cadogan Gallery is delighted to present Break Easy, an exhibition of new works by German artist Kim Bartelt. This will be the artist's second solo exhibition with Cadogan and the first time her work will be shown in Milan. In Break Easy, Bartelt has created a series of paintings that mediate on the ephemerality of the world and the very act of art making itself through the use of elementary form and translucent colour. Made in response to a statement once posed by the poet, Ocean Vuong, that the most powerful and strengthening thing an artist can do is to "bring down the shield (they've) been taught to put up around them", the works in the series reveal a pulsing inner landscape that resonates with intellectual introspection and discordant energy.

     

    A sense of fragility pervades these works, a precariousness as fine and fragile as the thin, membranous paper the artist fixes onto the canvas. These delicate sheets, slightly ripped and alive with snaking lines or capillaries, are pasted on to the rougher, unprimed side of the canvas, where the fibrous texture comes through and indents itself directly onto the angular forms. In each painting we see the gradual alterations throughout the series as Bartelt explores the progressive layers of thought, producing visual expressions of the inexplicable. Like metaphoric shields, they become symbolic manifestations of the guards we put up around ourselves; channeling the vibration of life's events to move from the personal and subjective to the broad and universal.

  • Larger Works
    • Caught up, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      Caught up, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • Red as a rose, 2023 paper, pastel and oil pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      Red as a rose, 2023
      paper, pastel and oil pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • Easy, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      Easy, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • So long, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      So long, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • Dusk till dawn, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      Dusk till dawn, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • Still, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      Still, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • Early on, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      Early on, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • Rain check, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      Rain check, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • Flipside, 2023 paper, pastel, oil pastel, linseed oil and pigment on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      Flipside, 2023
      paper, pastel, oil pastel, linseed oil and pigment on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
    • All in, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
      All in, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      150cm x 120cm (59" x 47")
  • Smaller Works
    • Candy for you, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      Candy for you, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • Sympathy, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      Sympathy, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • Inside out, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      Inside out, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • High stake, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      High stake, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • Die sonne geht auf, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      Die sonne geht auf, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • Sidetracked, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      Sidetracked, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • Blausamkeit, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      Blausamkeit, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • Du spinnst wohl, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      Du spinnst wohl, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • I'll be your mirror, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      I'll be your mirror, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • Solid base, 2022 paper and pastel on linen 100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
      Solid base, 2022
      paper and pastel on linen
      100cm x 80cm (39" x 31")
    • Got you covered, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 60cm x 50cm (24" x 20")
      Got you covered, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      60cm x 50cm (24" x 20")
    • Here & there, 2023 paper and pastel on linen 60cm x 50cm (24" x 20")
      Here & there, 2023
      paper and pastel on linen
      60cm x 50cm (24" x 20")
  • Sculptures
    • Armour I, 2023 cardboard, papier-mâché and pigment H 197cm x W 88cm x D 49cm
      Armour I, 2023
      cardboard, papier-mâché and pigment
      H 197cm x W 88cm x D 49cm
    • Pillar I, 2023 cardboard, papier-mâché and pigment H 135cm x W 47cm x D 38cm
      Pillar I, 2023
      cardboard, papier-mâché and pigment
      H 135cm x W 47cm x D 38cm
    • Pillar II, 2023 cardboard, papier-mâché and pigment H 180cm x W 62cm x D 41cm
      Pillar II, 2023
      cardboard, papier-mâché and pigment
      H 180cm x W 62cm x D 41cm
    • Pillar III, 2023 cardboard, papier-mâché and pigment H 146cm x W 58cm x D 41cm
      Pillar III, 2023
      cardboard, papier-mâché and pigment
      H 146cm x W 58cm x D 41cm
  • Born in Berlin, Germany, Bartelt studied art history in Paris before moving to the US and finishing her studies in...
    Image by Marina Denisova

     

    Born in Berlin, Germany, Bartelt studied art history in Paris before moving to the US and finishing her studies in Fine Art at Parsons School of Design in New York. It was there that she started collecting paper and slowly began incorporating it into her art practice; making impossibly light, minimal collages that appear to transcend their own materiality through their delicate translucence. Since then she has continued to work with paper, juxtaposing the clarity of the forms with the fine, intimate detail of the textured paper. Her restrained visual vocabulary, and luminous colour palette, harness complex emotional states into controlled, deeply harmonious compositions. In recent years the artist has begun exploring space and volume with large-scale sculptural works, made of deceptively lightweight material.

     

    In her sculptural work, the rigid angular blocks may at first appear robust, yet they are a hollow shell, made from stiff, everyday cardboard. They look as though the slightest push could topple them over. These redundant forms focus attention on the surrounding wall works that line up, side by side, their serene tones quivering in impressive silence; their power stemming from their subtle interplay between depth and flatness and their gently antagonistic use of colour. Without offering any form of resolution they instead engage a sensory dimension, articulating unknown sentiments that reveal the contradictory threads of the human condition and the emotional resilience required to be an artist.

     
  • Studio Shots

    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Clemens Poloczek (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Clemens Poloczek (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Clemens Poloczek (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Image by Marina Denisova (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
  • Installation Shots

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    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
  • Press Release and E-Catalogue

    • View Press Release
    • View E-Catalogue
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