STUDIO – THE TOWER
Opening speech by Renate Moran for the exhibition “LICHTUNGEN I” at the Margret Bilger Gallery Stift Schlierbach/ 2023:
“Isabella Scharf-Minichmair, this wonderful multifaceted artist, was born in Kirchdorf on July 20, 1971, and after attending Metaldesign at HTL Steyr, she went on to study at the University of Art in Linz. Initially focusing on painting and graphics, she later earned a PhD on the topic of the artistic genre “SPURENSICHERUNG” from the same institution. These qualifications have significantly shaped the foundation for Isabella’s artistic work, which has now spanned many years. Her creations, whether in painting, glass, paper, or enamel, are described in great detail and intellectually by her. You can find all this on her website or on Wikipedia. Her artistic approach is unique, and her repertoire of techniques is diverse and extensive. She unites her levels of design through skill and versatility. This often results in pieces that come together as a cohesive whole. But how does she achieve this, and what is her approach to her visual world?
Let me start an experiment. I am trying to build an imaginary tower – a metaphorical tower, where we will find Isabella as we search for her. A tower around her, beneath her, above her, and on four sides. These are places for glass. They are for colors and raw materials. They are for thinking, writing, painting, and drawing. These places are for the intense and for the complex. Beneath the artist, there are floors where you find her earth, her roots, her garden, her nourishment. Next to her, on the side, her family – her friendships, her people. Those whom they can sometimes also bring out of the tower.
When she finds her way back to the center of the tower, she paints, writes, and is completely free. Here she gathers the roots and the light from above, allowing shadows to emerge. The fascinating shadows. There are imagined pots with translucent color nuances. There are also palettes with stones and other ancient relics. Ink in a Chinese box, for example. Here, there is the quiet spring, the loud summer, the colorful autumn, or the bright winter. Isabella begins to work right in the middle. One myth after another hangs in the air. The artist Isabella Scharf Minichmair must organize herself, weigh things, discard, and confront herself. She takes full and wipes away – allows darkness to exist – only to lay the light over it in the next moment. She ascends to the heights of the tower, sees her many layers, sees the trace she left behind – and continues to find.
It could happen this way, but the fact is that Isabella Scharf-Minichmair creates great works that draw from mythology, antiquity, and the sacred. Ethereally, she immerses herself, pulls back again, takes, and rounds off. She fully concentrates on her artistic work. A sentence she gifted me today is: “I stand behind my pictures and not in front of the works.”
A quote from me to conclude: “When old roots don’t stop growing, the breath becomes strong and wide.” Renate Moran
FARBEBEKENNEN 