Romana Menze-Kuhn

Romana Menze-Kuhn in a work of art

Romana Menze-Kuhn (born August 4, 1957 in Würzburg ) is a German painter and installation artist.

Life

After graduating from high school, she learned the profession of physiotherapist in 1978, trained in dance and pantomime with Fe Reichelt and went to New York in 1983 to receive further training at the Performance Center NY with Laura Fernandez and Ken Emsig and at the Clown Theater NY. A longer stay in Asia was decisive for the decision to become an artist. From 1988 to 1996 she attended courses from the Professional Association of Visual Artists in Frankfurt and at the Städelschule in Frankfurt with Michael Siegel. In 2000, her sculpture “Junction Junction - Window to the Landfill” attracted attention. She has been a freelance artist since 1993 and has been exhibiting regularly at international level since then. She lives in Eschborn near Frankfurt am Main.

Work and effect

The sensitive perception of artificially created natural spaces versus original nature is the focus of Romana Menze-Kuhn's work. The artist became known for her installations in public spaces. Her work is shaped by the arrangement of various artistic media into aesthetic, content-related and critical works. These balance between space and spatial painting, between the finished and the processual, whereby their focus is on painting.

painting

Gestures are associated with monochromes when the dark, mostly black surfaces, which often shimmer from the depths and let other shades of color appear, join the informal structures. But the abstract is also combined with the figurative, when the artist brings reality in the form of a photo collage and connects it with the gestures of her colorful painting. Here the stimulation of the landscape she experienced on her travels is reflected, which are sensitively revealed in her painting. The attentive viewer can imagine the landscape, cities, rivers from China or temples from Mexico. Romana Menze-Kuhn is an artist who, with a critical eye, lets the changed nature and landscape emerge in her work and calls on the recipient to reflect, to engage in dialogue.

process

Her work is never finished, it is a phase of passage, fixed in the moment of the present. They are constantly being changed, expanded, and adapted to different situations. Because of this provisional nature, constant incompleteness, she avoids any dogmatic statement. The material, the color, are the game pieces that she handles herself but also suggests to the viewer to fantasize associatively with the material at hand - the floor installation - in order to understand it. Art as a means of knowledge, as a way of becoming conscious, without the corset of a scientific set.

installation

With the installation “Junction Junction - Window to the Landfill”, Romana Menze-Kuhn produced an artistic work that is site-specific. She deals in a critical way with her spatial environment, the boundary between the Flörsheim / Wicker landfill and the surrounding landscape, by revealing the natural growth that has arisen over time and which has been hampered by garbage in its organic growth. Art here does not serve purely aesthetic edification. Rather, the ideal content of this work is to give the viewer the opportunity to see not only the result, but also the process of artificially and natural production of nature by humans.

With “umraeume n” 2008/9, the Eschborn artist Romana Menze-Kuhn takes a stance on the change in visual art in the church against the background of social change. At the same time, she takes a critical look at people and their environment, their “surrounding spaces”. Embedded in processes of social change, people are confronted with constantly changing situations that always require new perspectives. At the same time, the growing need for spirituality can be observed in Western societies. In addition to providing space for critical reflection, the installation also offers the opportunity for contemplative reflection. Joachim Albert MA, Kunstverein Friedberg 2008/9.

Prices

1994: Award of the Art Prize of the City of Schwalbach / Ts. 1st Prize
2001: St. Andreas Art Prize of the National Park Community of St. Andreas

Nominations

2006/10: nominated for the Art and Design Prize of the Lippe Rose in Lemgo
2001: St. Andreas Art Prize of the National Park Community of St. Andreas
2009: nominated for the Art Prize of the Mörfelden / Walldorf Sculpture Park
2011: nominated for the 1st German Installation Prize of the 5th Höhler Biennale
2012: nominated for the Art Prize Church and Culture, Wiesbaden
2013: nominated for the Art Prize of the Telephone Counseling Service Mainz / Wiesbaden (7)
2014: nominated for the Art Prize of the Archdiocese of Freiburg
2015: nominated for the German Installation Prize of the 7th Höhler Biennale

Scholarships

2004: Moldova scholarship at the Egon Schiele Art Centrum in Cesky Krumlov, Cz

Exhibitions

Romana Menze-Kuhn is an internationally and regionally significant artist who shows her works at exhibitions and in museums around the world.

1996: “Salon de Printemps” at the Theater Municipal Luxembourg
1998: Guang Dong Museum of Modern Art in Guangzhou , People's Republic of China
1999: Museum in Mo I Rana, Norway
1999: Kleinsassen Art Station (10)
2000: Biennale Int. in Québec Canada
2000: Sculpture "Junction Junction - Window to the Landfill"
2001: Christine Rother Gallery
2001: 2nd International Biennial New Watercolor in Kleinsassen
2001: 7th art exhibition “Natur-Mensch” in the Harz National Park
2004: 7th International Miniature Biennial in Québec
2005: Montgeron Museum near Paris
2008: Kunstverein Friedberg and Burgkirche Friedberg with Astrid Menze
2009: Sculpture Park Mörfelden "The country has / needs strong women"
2010: Artists' Association Walkmühle e. V., Wiesbaden
2010: "gArten" exhibition of the designs for the Wiesbaden Art Summer
2011: 5th Höhler Biennale, Gera
2014: Galerie Apollon, Eschborn
2014: E-Werk Freiburg
2014: Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum , Mannheim
2015: 7th Höhler Biennale, Gera
2015: Art and Church in the Wetterau
2016: Housing 6/2016, Philippuskirche (Mannheim)

literature

Romana Menze-Kuhn, "naturen" Edition Galerie A2A, Frankfurt 2002, ISBN 3-00-009148-3 .
Romana Menze-Kuhn, "humanature" Galerie40 Ch.Rother Wiesbaden, ISBN 978-3-00-021610-7 .
Romana Menze-Kuhn, "Gedankenraumgedanken", Galerie Christine Rother, ISBN 978-3-00-033897-7 .
Art Prize of the Archdiocese of Freiburg 2015, "Gnade", Archdiocese of Freiburg, ISBN 978-3-86828-570-3 KEHRER