Z22 #017

Astrid Köppe, lives in Berlin since 2001; 1992-99 Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, diploma + master student; born 1974 in Köthen / Anhalt; solo exhibitions (selection): 2020 konfabulasi, Gallery Sekiryu, Tokyo, konfabulasi, Gallery Sekiryu, Matsumoto; Galerie Inga Kondeyne, Berlin; 2019 untitled (untitled) (with Lukas Troberg), LAGE EGAL, Berlin; pretty shiny stuff, Galerie Carolyn Heinz, Hamburg; konfabulasi, LostGens Art Space, Kuala Lumpur, MY; 2016 Fusiform, Galerie Carolyn Heinz, Hamburg; Astrid Köppe - New Work, Gallery Joe, Philadelphia, USA; 2013.

Astrid Köppe’s wondrous A4 drawings resemble pages from expedition diaries, opened up, disassembled, and spread out in a game of correlation. They are, as we know, the product of the artist's imagination. Using large and small dots, closely and widely set dashes – electing to make these light and fluid, or bold, she lends fresh rhythm to naturally evolving forms, reduced to their origins. Across the full gamut of drawing – together with striking, generally powerful colour settings – she creates surprising new existences, one after another; endlessly, over the years, they have appeared individually on her sheets of work. We become observers of an artistic amoeba world of sheer inexhaustible, developing gestalt; its irritating, sometimes bizarre otherness underlaid often enough with a glimpse of irony, inviting us on a unique voyage of discovery.