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 wonderfully multifaceted artist, was born in Kirchdorf on July 20, 1971. After studying Metal Design at HTL Steyr, she went on to study at the University of Art and Design Linz. Initially focusing on painting and graphic art, she later completed her doctoral studies at the same institution, researching the artistic genre “SPURENSICHERUNG.” These formative experiences have shaped the foundation of an artistic practice that has developed over many years and across a wide range of media, including painting, glass, paper, and enamel.
Her work is accompanied by an extensive body of artistic and intellectual reflection, in which she continuously examines the processes, materials, and relationships that shape her practice. Her artistic approach is distinctive, and her repertoire of techniques is both diverse and extensive. She brings different levels of artistic production together with remarkable skill and versatility, often resulting in works that form a cohesive whole. But how does she achieve this, and what lies behind her approach to the visual world?
Let me start an experiment. I am trying to build an imaginary tower—a metaphorical tower in which we will find Isabella as we search for her. A tower around her, beneath her, above her, and on all four sides. These are places for glass, for color and raw materials, for thinking, writing, painting, and drawing. Places for the intense and the complex. Beneath the artist are the floors where we find her earth, her roots, her garden, her nourishment. Beside her, on either side, is her family—her friendships, her people. Those who can, at times, bring her 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 from below and the light from above, allowing shadows to emerge. Fascinating shadows.There are imagined vessels filled with translucent nuances of color. There are palettes of 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 applies, fills, and wipes away – allows darkness to exist – only to lay light over it in the next moment. She ascends to the heights of the tower, sees her many layers, sees the traces she has left behind—and continues to find.
It could happen this way. But the fact is that Isabella Scharf-Minichmair creates powerful works that draw from mythology, antiquity, and the sacred. She immerses herself in these realms, ethereally moving inward and then pulling back again—taking, transforming, and refining. She gives herself fully to her artistic work.”
A sentence she gifted me today is: “I stand behind my painting, not in front of the works.”
And I would like to conclude with a quote of my own:
“When old roots do not stop growing, the breath becomes strong and wide.” Renate Moran
FARBEBEKENNEN 