RAPHAELA SIMON

As a painter, Simon surrenders control, allowing her paintings to form themselves and obtain meaning on their own. The artist feels that intellect and will can make a painting illustrative. Instead, she relies on intuition and feeling, creating works that are intimate and personal. Simon explains her process, “No image exists in the beginning. In my view, a painting does not start with a specific object, idea, form, content, memory, or imagination. Sometimes I work closer to the ‘form’, sometimes closer to the ‘content’. It is the state of tension between all these things that interests me.” In her paintings, Simon arrives at images that are both figurative and abstract, opposites that she feels are not mutually exclusive. Simon elaborates, saying: “I need both, they feed each other.”

Simon studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. Solo exhibitions have been held worldwide at Oldenburger Kunstverein; Fondazione Giuliani, Rome; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin and Paris; Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles; and Michael Werner Gallery, London and New York. Simon lives and works in Berlin.