Kalin Lindena

Thinking on the move

Kalin Lindena calls her artistic interventions a gesture. Lines of movement cut into the space and twisted into form. Shapes, objects, works that are also traces of her rather unusual career for an art academy professor: The origins of Lindena's work lie in graffiti. "The artist who sprays" was the ambiguous title of an article about her in 2015. Before she studied at the HBK in Braunschweig under Hartmut Neumann, Johannes Brus and Walter Dahn, she was a sprayer on the streets of Hanover. And even though she has been in charge of a painting class in Karlsruhe since 2014, this origin is still reflected in Lindena's artistic work. As a technique and as a subculture, graffiti characterises her practice and her self-image. An imprint that does not manifest itself in any outwardly catchy aesthetic, but becomes recognisable above all when one tries to understand the painterly and sculptural, installative and performative works as, yes, gestures. At this point, gesture refers more to the mode of creation of Lindena's works. Those who paint gesturally paint in space, as in graffiti. In contrast to pencil or charcoal on paper, every line sprayed inevitably becomes a movement of the entire body. And therein also becomes its trace. The gesture is not simply a means, not just the expression of an idea, of an already completed thought. It is thinking in realisation!

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