Bettina Scholz: Ost / West und das südliche Orakel

Fantasy?

Bettina Scholz paints pictures that look like alchemical pours of colour, and so many viewers like to see apocalyptic worlds in them, as Max Dax writes, who invited the artist to the Deichtorhallen for "HYPER!" in summer 2019. This association is not surprising, as her vibrantly luminous pictures, which she paints on and behind glass, are created in an exploration of sacred church art, Gothic book illumination or the visual and musical world of contemporary fantasy and science fiction formats. However, there are also concrete references to films such as "Blade Runner" by Ridley Scott, the "Dune" films based on the "Desert Planet" by the American writer Frank Herbert, the films "Solaris" or "Stalker" by the Russian director Andrej Tarkowsky and their film music by Edvard Artemiev or the sound of the techno label Underground Resistance. Bettina Scholz's paintings, which she realises not only on acrylic glass but also on wood or canvas, as well as her drawings, objects and installations, reflect not least the visual influences of her childhood in the former GDR. It was here that her love of fairy tale books, the Art Nouveau style of the Golden Age of Illustration, the richly decorated Eastern European picture book editions or the colourfully printed edition of Michael Ende's classic "Momo", smuggled into the country and decorated with drawings, was born. For Bettina Scholz, products of the imagination have an enormous influence on what we call reality: "For me, the fantastic, the invented, has nothing to do with escaping the world or trivialising it in an artistic context; on the contrary, it can stimulate independent thinking and even develop rebellious potential." With the lockdown of the 2020s, she also began a series of sketchbooks, which now contain around 500 drawings and collages; excerpts of these are presented here for the first time. The monograph shows pictures and exhibition views from the last ten years and is accompanied by experimental, autobiographical essays that provide insights into the creation of the pictures and the artist's imagination.

Exhibition:
Kunstverein Heilbronn, 1/2 - 4/5/2025