Exhibition opening

MAŁGORZATA SZTREMER
ENTKREUZUNG (DECROSSING)

Exhibition opening: Thursday, 11 January 2024, 6:00 p.m.
Exhibition duration: 11 January 2024 - 24 February 2024, Tue-Sat, 2-6 p.m.

On Thursday, 11 January 2024 at 6:00 p.m., the Saarländische Galerie and the Kulturstiftung Schloss Wiepersdorf invite you to the opening of the solo exhibition ENTKREUZUNG (DECROSSING) by Małgorzata Sztremer.

Reading: Thomas de Padova
Music: Said Azh
Introduction: Thari Jungen, artistic research

In autumn 2022, the visual artist Małgorzata Sztremer, the composer Said Azh and the author Thomas de Padova met during their fellowship at Schloss Wiepersdorf. Between easel, desk and piano, their daily encounters led to a slow rapprochement that resulted in an artistic exchange.

"[...] the invitation to take a longer look, read actively and listen empathically, followed by the encouragement to happily engage with each other's work," is how the three artists describe this process of exchange.

This is how Thomas de Padova wrote a poem about Sztremer's painting Azurit.

When the earth sinks
And the night fills with blue
Dreams rise
To invisible stars
When the earth sinks
And the night fills with blue
The fairy tale comes to life
From which we move away

The results will be presented at the exhibition opening. The exhibition of Małgorzata Sztremer's work has been organised in cooperation with the Schloss Wiepersdorf Cultural Foundation.

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Małgorzata Sztremer, born in 1972 in Bytom, Poland, studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and then sculpture at the Saar University of Fine Arts, where she works today as a lecturer in painting and drawing. She is a lecturer in drawing at the evening school attached to the university. She lives in Saarbrücken.

Sztremer's figurative paintings have a narrative effect, blending detailed depictions and abstraction. In her paintings, different influences from fairy tales, myths and science, elements from memories and pictorial elements from other art eras come together in a kind of montage and merge into a strange/enigmatic/abstract and at the same time very concrete pictorial world. It is precisely these intermediate worlds that are the artist's painting spaces.

In contrast to the dream-influenced images of the Surealists, Małgorzata Sztremer finds her pictorial ideas mainly in fairy tales and myths, literary or (art) historical traditions. A central figure in her paintings of recent years is Baba Jaga, a complex figure of the wise woman with magical or divine powers, who is deeply rooted in the tradition of Slavic mythology.

Friederike Steitz describes Sztremer's work in the exhibition catalogue of the Museum St. Wendel published in 2022:

"In contrast to the stereotype of the witch as an evil woman with supernatural powers, in Małgorzata Sztremer's paintings she appears as a special phenomenon, but not as a symboliser of good or evil. The artist's interest in the figure of the witch as a sovereign, independent female figure is combined in some of her paintings with her interest in the colourfulness and materiality of minerals.

Her preoccupation with etymology, mineralogical classification, the use of minerals in history and esoteric interpretations of minerals as healing stones lead to a conglomerate of various interwoven pictorial motifs. A long painting process begins, during which Małgorzata Sztremer places her protagonists in relation to her research and the diverse intellectual connections based on it. (...) The function and nature of the figures determine the construction of the pictorial space. The more the painter takes on the perspective of her figures during the painting process, the more complex is the task of giving them the appropriate space for action. (...)

With her paintings, Małgorzata Sztremer may at times expose herself to the suspicion that her art is an expression of romantic transfiguration and detachment from the world. However, it is precisely the lack of pathos with which these (...) beings confront us and are self-sufficient in their actions that is touching and counteracts exaggeration." (Friederike Steitz, excerpts from the catalogue text "...everything else remained invisible." Museum St. Wendel 2022)

The exhibition of Małgorzata Sztremer's works was organised in cooperation with the Kulturstiftung Schloss Wiepersdorf. The artist was awarded a scholarship by the Saarland Ministry of Education and Culture for Schloss Wiepersdorf in 2022.

www.malgorzatasztremer.com