Solweig de Barry: Zwischen Dicht und Dünn

To the sun to the light

One of the special qualities of Solweig de Barry's (*1987 in Strasbourg, lives and works in Berlin) painting is the balance between suggestion and formulation, between conceptual distance and intuition, between representationalism and abstraction. The exhibition at the Kunstverein Heilbronn is the first comprehensive solo presentation of her work in an institution, with works on canvas and a stained-glass window on the Kunstverein's large window front. Artists have been asking themselves how they can paint with light since the early Gothic period. Over the centuries, there have been impressive examples of this: the cathedrals of Chartres or Amiens, the Notre Dame du Ronchamp chapel by Le Corbusier or the stained glass windows by contemporary artists such as Gerhard Richter in Tholey or, more recently, Olafur Eliasson in Greifswald, to name just a few. What they all have in common, however, is that colour and glass are firmly connected through the technical process of production. Solweig de Barry, on the other hand, was looking for a way to create paintings on glass panes in situ whose colour produces the same translucent effect as classic glass art, as most commercially available paints, such as finger paints or varnishes, only cast a grey or black shadow on the floor once they have been applied. The process she has now developed for glass painting by experimenting with inks and varnishes opens up the possibility of extending two-dimensional painting into space, working with reflections and repetitions, and integrating the movement of the sun and light.

Exhibition:
Kunstverein Heilbronn, 18/5 - 8/9/2024