SOPHIE ESSLINGER
b. 1996, AustriaSophie Esslinger’s paintings are stages on which contradictions coexist: hard and soft, hot and cold, inside and outside. Working with an ever-evolving visual vocabulary, she creates forms that refuse a single reading – a shape might be a tear, a raindrop, blood, a shell, a mountain peak, a breast, or an onion. This multiplicity is the driving force of her practice, transforming repetition into difference and colour into narrative. Inspired by both art history and literature, Esslinger recontextualises ideas within her own painterly cosmos, weaving together optical phenomena and emotional associations.
Her works have been shown in institutions including Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (Die Große NRW Kunstausstellung, 2024), KIT – Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf (2022), Weserburg Museum, Bremen (2021), as well as Vienna Collectors Club (Ein Fleck Sonne, 2024) and Galerie Hilger Ballgasse, Vienna (Kühle Sterne, 2022).
Courtesy Contemporary Fine Art, Berlin/Basel.
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