Stella Hamberg

LAWRENCE, 2006, 190 x 123 x 70 cm
(74.8 x 48.4 x 27.6 inch)
Polyurethane, cast ceramics, painted

PRAYER, 2006, 140 x 180 x 40 cm
(55.1 x 70.9 x 15.8 inch),
Polyurethane, epoxy

PRAYER, 2006, 140 x 180 x 40 cm
(55.1 x 70.9 x 15.8 inch),
Polyurethane, epoxy

LAWRENCE - end of time

05/12/2006 – 06/17/2006

The spectrum of Stella Hambergs art works reaches from room taking ensembles, monument like sculptures and life size figures to voluminous wall relief. Like her early works, the new ones are characterized by intense inconsistency of material, the connection of rough and edged surfaces with soft and precisely written out parts. Through the material and surface contrasts, the works appear to be both repelling and inviting at the same time, like a rugged coastline with hidden sandy beaches. She describes her line of action as “sculptural painting”.

With her stylistic as well as with her content disruptions she is asking what the sanguine consists of. She transforms cultural and subjective believes, the holy and profane to an archaic mood. Archetypes and symbols of different cultures combine themselves to an image mythology, which covers different epochs – a tightrope walk between intimate seriousness and distanced exaggeration. This is what makes the art works look like being taking out of a bigger epic coherence, as if they exist for a long time.

The new art work Lawrence plays with different end time legends of different religions and cultures. The result is an image impression, which rewrites and develops the image memory of the viewer by using and defragging these end time symbols and metaphors. By doing that it is like leading the end time concept ad absurdum.

Stella Hamberg is a scholarship holder of the Karl-Schmidt-Rottluff-Scholarship 2006; she lives and works in Berlin.