From sculpture to installation to painting to song

As a sculptor I started working with spaces early on. Only in a certain context does an object turn into a sculpture. And I did not define this context theoretically, or obtain it from institutional guidelines, but produced it spatially in a concrete way: the sculptures were given their own space or the space in which they were located was reinterpreted in such a way that a clearly visible art location was created.

Sculptures floating on lakes, forest floor spread out in churches, interspersed with masks made of rice paper, avenue trees belonging to the commons as carriers of drawings. Between tables and chairs in a public space, a long table with stools and their stony, sculptured guests.

At some point I realised why I felt the irresistible urge to colour my sculptures: in my world as a synaesthete everything is coloured, words, thoughts, sounds, spaces, sensations. Everything.
I needed large paint surfaces for an installation. I needed large paint surfaces for an installation. So I locked myself up for a week with freshly mounted canvases and painting materials, and when I emerged again, I knew I had found a way to live my colours.

The glazing technique of highly diluted numerous acrylic layers enables the intense impression of spatial depth and movement on the canvas: the layers of paint float and oscillate, demanding time from our light-sensitive retinal rods to settle into them. The colour is created in the eye and not on the palette; it changes with every light.

Thus, the images concretely and sensorily demonstrate the phenomenon that there is no thing in itself, but that everything only – and solely – comes into being in the light that falls on it. It does not exist independently of what it makes appear and of the person who perceives it.

Since everything is coloured in my world, a colourless sculpture for me is one that has had its colour stripped off like the rabbit’s fur. Colour is not something that is placed on a sculpture, but belongs to the sculpture like the skin to the organism. Even more: I can only think of every form in terms of colour.

Looking for a material that, unlike the application of colour to an object, enables a fusion of colour and coloured body, I inevitably came to ceramics and glaze. Here my sculptures could finally let off steam in terms of colour, ideally as a symbiosis of image and sculpture, as colour concretising itself in three-dimensional space.

All free forms – which are fed by the forms stored in my hands through touch, varied by the encounter with the complexity of organic nature, such as that of deep-sea organisms, – I develop in a coloured idea.

I understand my work as creating a place where movement is transformed: In painting, movement becomes colour, in sculpture it becomes form In both, movement is saved and preserved, transformed into a state that takes movement out of time and yet does not immobilise it, but allows it to be experienced as movement.

Air that moves is sound. Since in my world sounds are not only colourful but also form distinct shapes with haptic surfaces surface – how one can hear without seeing I cannot even imagine – it was only a matter of time before I realised that when I sing, I sing sculptures. This is how my sculptures found their real material: in the transformation into sound. And me as a singer, I gained the experience of creating ONE sound with musicians, dancers and the audience.

Curriculum Vitae

Born and raised

Berlin

Study of philosophy

Berlin and Tübingen

Actress with Robert Wilson Death Destruction and Detroit I

Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer

Harun Farocki
Etwas wird sichtbar

(female lead)

Study of sculpture with Harald Klingelhöller

Akademie Karlsruhe

Stage design assistance with Johannes Schütz

Opera Frankfurt on the Main

Exhibitions, installations, illustrations

Sound spaces, performances,
Vocals in various ensembles

Illustratoren Organisation e.V.

Member

Deutschen Synästhesie Gesellschaft

former board member

Marine Conservation Organization DEEPWAVE e.V.

Founding member and CEO since 2017

lives and works with her family in Hamburg

Solo exhibitions and performances (selection)

Showroom

Hamburg from 2016

Our Blue Planet

Meeresmuseum Stralsund 2016

Our Blue Planet

Zoologisches Museum Hamburg 2014

Lost in Plastic

Galerie Tornberg | Hamburg 2012

AKTIONSRAUM. Performance

Württembergischer Kunstverein | Stuttgart 2015

Das Hören und Sehen von Musik

Concert performance with cellist Andranik Sargsyan | Hamburg 2012

Lost in Plastic

Video with Andrew Levine | 2012

plastik MEER musik

MS Stubnitz | Baakenhafen Hamburg 2011

Und Tiere sehen Dich an

Leipziger Tierärztekongress | 2011

FarbTöne

Stage design for the a cappella choir vOkabile | 2011

Leuchten und Singen

with Benjamin Schubert | Hamburg 2011

Skulpturen singen Kinderlieder

Altonale Hamburg 2011

SkulpturenSingen

Blurred Edges Festival | Hamburg 2011

Farbformfarbe

EiswiesenDialoge | Karlsruhe 2010

Foraminiferen Norddeutschlands

Eiszeitmuseum Lütjenburg 2010

The Language of Mimic

Inst. f. Kultur- u. Sozialanthropologie | Wien 2010

Blurb und Urga

Exhibition and sound installation | Jenischpark 2010

Showroom Hamburg from 2016
Our Blue Planet Meeresmuseum Stralsund 2016
Our Blue PlanetZoologisches Museum Hamburg 2014
Performance Württembergischer Kunstverein | Stuttgart 2015
Lost in Plastic Galerie Tornberg | Hamburg 2012
Das Hören und Sehen von Musik Concert performance
with cellist Andranik Sargsyan | Hamburg 2012
Lost in Plastic Video with Andrew Levine | 2012
plastik MEER musik MS Stubnitz | Baakenhafen Hamburg 2011
Und Tiere sehen Dich an | Leipzig 2011
FarbTöne Stage design for the a cappella choir vOkabile | 2011
Leuchten und Singen with Benjamin Schubert | Hamburg 2011
Skulpturen singen Kinderlieder | Altonale Hamburg 2011
SkulpturenSingen Blurred Edges Festival | Hamburg 2011
Farbformfarbe EiswiesenDialoge | Karlsruhe 2010
Foraminiferen Norddeutschlands Eiszeitmuseum Lütjenburg 2010
The Language of Mimic Inst. f. Kultur- u. Sozialanthropologie | Wien 2010
Blurb und Urga Exhibition and sound installation | Jenischpark 2010

Work in the public space

Work in the public space

Daphne with family
The Lion
The Throne
Bulimina Marginata 1:6000

Grimma | Sachsen
High altitude hiking trail near Balderschwang | Allgäu
Prösitz | Sachsen
Bildhauergarten | Karlsruhe

Daphne with Family Grimma | Sachsen
The Lion High altitude hiking trail near Balderschwang | Allgäu
The Throne Prösitz | Sachsen
Bulimina Marginata 1:6000 Bildhauergarten | Karlsruhe

References

DEEPWAVE e.V. | The Marine Conservation Organization (website, print, film festival).
Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
National Geographic Deutschland
Freistil – Best of German Commercial Illustration 2014
Synaisthesis Verlag | Luxemburg
WIR – Menschen im Wandel | info- Verlag
Blumlein Records | Hamburg
Vocal Ensemble vOkabile

Dedication and Thanks

This page is dedicated to my husband, who inspires and supports me, sets my exhibitions up, and is there whenever more than two hands are required in my workshop. Who made school lunches, lasagne and bonfires with and for our sons, so that I could work through the night, and made apple pie for all our guests. My harshest critic, the most open, curious, impartial, enthusiastic person I have met.
Who will always inspire and support me.

My whole-hearted thank goes out to our sons, Heye and Tjark, for filling this life with joy, light, and chaos.

Dedication and Thanks

This page is dedicated to my husband, who inspires and supports me, sets my exhibitions up, and is there whenever more than two hands are required in my workshop. Who made school lunches, lasagne and bonfires with and for our sons, so that I could work through the night, and made apple pie for all our guests. My harshest critic, the most open, curious, impartial, enthusiastic person I have met.
Who will always inspire and support me.

My whole-hearted thank goes out to our sons, Heye and Tjark, for filling this life with joy, light, and chaos.

Onno Groß, 1964 – 2016