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9/3/2012

Nikola Rothemeyer

Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin

In her series FadenSpiele (Cat’s Cradles) Nikola Röthemeyer develops a complex field of new pictoral worlds. Her new works are showing female figures rapt in a technical job and squired by animal companions. But different from her FrauenZimmer the new works emerge as a window to another strange world. The working women are detached of all the laws of nature and move freely on the image planes. Initially space doesn´t seem to have a meaning or use in their world but subsequent works from the series start with the exploration of space and the opening of several image layers. Often individual motifs begin to fade only to reappear in another spot on the paper and sometimes just as a shade of the original figure. The animal companions do not only surround the protagonists, they become a part of the women´s working process – from the back of the star tortoise uncoils a thin silk thread, tarsiers clasp to winding women and megabats share the sky with quires of prolate silk.

The figures spread over the whole sheet as part of the composition. Vacancies occur which Nikola Röthemeyer describes as pauses. And although time is a key motif of her works these pauses in her narrative become a strong element of her drawing vocabulary. With this she creates the paradox of presence and absence of time in her works. The clue to these contradictions lies in her affinity to the Magical Realism – magical reality, as for instance dreams, and substantive reality form a synthesis which leads to a third reality. Substantive reality forms the foundation of Nikola Röthemeyer´s pictoral world. Through research she first creates a base frame of terminology, proceedings and characters. Only these resources permit a freed way of working and and allow the entering of magical reality in her pictoral world.

Joined to the new series is also a large format which leads from her need to grow artistically – adding the bleed of figures on the sheet as the deliberate omission and part of the the creative process. The sketch as a motif has it´s roots in the classicistic portrait drawing but also in the Romanticism discovering the esthetic allure of the fragment. With this decision Nikola Röthemeyer consciously turns against the style of the old masters understanding of drawing as preliminary practice or study to deliberations of the proportion of idea and drawing in the way of Federico Zucchari described it. According to his theory the drawing is the expression an endless mental potential of the human spirit through the unlimited fictional world.

In her series FadenSpiele Nikola Röthemeyer reaches for familiar approaches and in the same time expands the boundaries of her pictoral experience. The theme of a mere view, the snatch of a moment and the glimpse through a window reinforces in the synopsis of the works. Nikola Röthemeyer senses joy and obligation in expressing a nearly lost feeling of truth and values in her works. The own and the alien are hardly to separate and this is what makes the works narrationally solid and fulfills the desire for a layer of one´s own ideas of interpretation.

Jill Leciejewski

Image: “FadenSpiel (Winden mit Koboldäffchen)”, 2011, 60 x 82 cm, Graphit und Farbstift auf Papier

Opening reception: Saturday 10 March 19h – 21h

Kuckei + Kuckei
Linienstrasse 158 - Berlin
Opening hours: Tuesday - Friday 11-18 h
Saturday 11 - 17
Free admission

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