StartPoint Prize 2016

Ulrike Kazmaier

Ulrike Kazmaier creates works that at first glance have little connection with each other in terms of form. The connection, however, is the mental process that inspires them. The artist borrows details from a variety of historical works of art, although not as such, but as translated by some medium of reproduction. Kazmaier repeats this process or zooms to extreme close-up, which may reveal for example the bright variety of colors in the pixels of Renaissance paper. Pixels in turn become an abstract tile mosaic. Work with other details shows other possibilities of translation, which as it turns out are infinite. In the era of digital appropriation and technical reproducibility, almost anything is possible and perhaps for this reason Kazmaier looks for ways to ground existing objects anew in some tangible reality. In doing so, she re-creates them into new, visually elegant abstract works.