Gesa Amfelde

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Gesa Amfelde (born September 4, 1952 in Wegberg , North Rhine-Westphalia ; † January 29, 2004 ; real name Gertrud Hofer ) was a German painter, illustrator and poet.

Life

After studying to become a teacher at RWTH Aachen University , Gesa Amfelde worked as a teacher in Berlin. Triggered by studying art history at the TU Berlin, which she took up alongside her job, she became aware of her destiny as an artist. After giving up teaching, she lived in Paris from 1979 to 1980 , where she maintained intensive contacts with the local art scene. In 1980 she moved to Freiburg i. Br. And - after their marriage in 1981 - to Kandern in southern Baden. Suffering from incurable cancer since the early 1990s, she worked tirelessly until her death and created a multitude of impressive works of art and lyrical texts driven by existential questions.

plant

The encounter with the Parisian art and gallery scene in the early 1980s, especially the experience of informal painting, led Gesa Amfelde to develop her own formal language. So-called "archaeologically archaic oil paintings" and numerous ink and chalk drawings are created.

The contact and exchange with colleagues was important for the elaboration and development of their formal possibilities, for example the meeting with the internationally renowned ceramist Horst Kerstan in the early 1980s, the admission to the artist group Lörrach in 1985 and friendship with them since the mid-1990s the Swiss sculptor Jürgen Brodwolf, who lives in Kandern .

The focus of the artistic work is the gestural sign, the proximity of the graphic or painterly trace to the writing. Whether in extremely filigree pen drawings or gripping, large-format oil paintings, in Gesa Amfelde's work a quasi-written trait, often reminiscent of East Asian calligraphy, is recognizable. The line, which is concretized into a sign, forms the basic element of her work, to which she attaches a universal meaning: "Movement out of a primordial state, movement towards a primitive state is the element of the line. The line, the sign, the constellation of signs are collecting points of my interest. The sign is written in a space that is both inside and outside. " In the mid-1990s she developed a series of works with her own abstract and illegible characters, which she named "Scriptural Painting". In dealing with her illness, the works are more and more clearly grounded by a preoccupation with basic questions of human life. In the poetry of that time, too, which are characterized by bold poetic images full of surreal wordings and a subtle irony, Gesa Amfelde repeatedly revolves around the subject of people in the broader context of nature and the cosmos.

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

  • 1986 Waltraud Zimmermann Gallery, Breisach, D
  • 1994 Waltraud Zimmermann Gallery, Breisach, D
  • 1996 Waltraud Zimmermann Gallery, Breisach, D
  • 1996 “Scriptural Painting”, Robert Keller Gallery, Kandern, D
  • 1997 Municipal Gallery Weil am Rhein , D
  • 1999 Robert Keller Gallery, Kandern, D
  • 2000 Fossati Gallery, Kilchberg , CH

Group exhibitions

  • 1985 Losch Gallery, Freiburg, D
  • 1985 Grenzacher Schlößle, Grenzach-Wyhlen, D
  • 1985–1995 Städtische Galerie Villa Aichele, Lörrach, D (participation in the annual exhibitions of the artist group Lörrach)
  • 1986 Municipal Gallery, Sens, F
  • 1988 Waltraud Zimmermann Gallery, Breisach, D
  • 1995 Municipal Gallery Weil am Rhein, D
  • 1996 "Ici et là / here and there", Villa Aichele, Lörrach, D / CRAC Alsace, Altkirch, F
  • 1996 "Menschesmensch", Municipal Gallery Weil am Rhein, D
  • 1998 “Artists”, Support Group for Fine Arts, Grand Ducal Palace, Badenweiler, D
  • 1998 “Passage”, Fossati Gallery, Kilchberg, CH

Volumes of poetry

  • So much shoulder tone. Verlag Cordula Haux, Bielefeld 1986, ISBN 3-925471-02-6 .
  • Braided breeze. Poems with original ink drawings, Edition Maldoror, Berlin 1998. DNB 954723422 .

Works in public collections

  • Regional council Freiburg
  • City of Loerrach
  • State of Baden-Württemberg
  • Deutsche Bank, Loerrach
  • Deutsche Bank, Mönchengladbach
  • German Bundestag
  • Burghof Loerrach

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gesa Amfelde, Notes on my work (unpublished manuscript from the estate).
personal data
SURNAME Amfelde, Gesa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hofer, Gertrud (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, draftsman and poet
DATE OF BIRTH 4th September 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Wegberg
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 2004