Thinking in Process

Kalin Lindena calls her artistic interventions gestures. They are lines of movement cut into the space and twisted to form; shapes, objects, works that are also traces of her rather unusual career path as a professor at the art academy. For Lindena’s work originated in graffiti. »The artist who sprays«, was the ambi­g­uous title of an article written about her in 2015. Before studying at the HBK in Braunschweig under Hartmut Neumann, Johannes Brus, and ­Walter Dahn, Lindena was a sprayer on the streets of Hannover. And even though she has taught and led a paint­ing class in Karlsruhe since 2014, this origin is still ­reflected in her artistic work. As technique and subculture, graffiti shapes her practice as well as her self-image. It’s an imprint that does not manifest itself in any outwardly catchy aes­thetic, but becomes particularly recognizable when one tries to understand the painterly and sculp­tural, installative and performative works as, well, gestures. She who paints gesturally paints in space, as in the case of graffiti. In contrast to ­pencil or charcoal on paper, every line sprayed inevitably becomes a movement of the entire body. And thereby also ­becomes its trace. The gesture is not simply a means, not just the expression of an idea, an already completed thought. It is thinking in process!

Exhibition:
Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe, 1/12/2024 – 27/4/2025