SABINE HERRMANN

The paintings on paper are characterised by great transparency. The colours, inevitably layered on top of one another on a two-dimensional sheet of paper, develop their own dynamics. What lies below seems to be on top, what is on top is below. They depict a three-dimensional space which our gaze can penetrate deeply.

Even if all works have titles, these don’t serve to explain anything. They emerge associatively while the finished painting is contemplated – they don’t stand at the beginning. But for the artist it’s nonetheless important to give the thing a name and to connect language and painting. In this way, she recovers the sensation and lends it sense, which however was not decisive during the creative process.

If I don’t want to engage, the interplay of colours offers aesthetic pleasure to the eye. Looking is enough; the emotion will come later.

Sabine Herrmann (born in 1961) studied painting at HfBK Dresden, from 1982 to 1986 at Kunsthochschule Berlin, and from 1990 to 1991 at l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art de la Villa Arson in Nice. She lives and works in Berlin. After her graduation, she travelled and worked in Ireland, Italy, Japan, and the United States. Important milestones of her artistic career were exhibition at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin in 2002, Gegenstimmen at Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, Die wilden 80er Jahre at Potsdam-Museum in 2016, and her solo show at Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst in Cottbus. Her works are part of the permanent exhibition of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.

Her works can be found in public art collections such as Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Landesmuseum Berlinische Galerie, Kunstmuseum Ahrenshoop, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst, Märkisches Museum Berlin (Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin), the art collection of the LBS Potsdam, Stiftung Kunstforum der Berliner Volksbank, as well as private collections like Sammlung Seitz, Reutlingen.