GLADBECK.- Neue Galerie Gladbeck is opening the solo exhibition Freie Bahn ins Glück by the artist MICHAELA EICHWALD at Neue Galerie Gladbeck. The opening will take place on today at 6:30 pm and will be introduced with a summer party.

The new works in the exhibition Freie Bahn ins Glück are created on site in Gladbeck and are made especially for the gallery’s premises. With an open mind, Michaela Eichwald embarks on a frank work process to leave us standing in front of her paintings, perhaps overwhelmed, perhaps amazed.

You only see what you know? Oh, dear Goethe!

Michaela Eichwald also tries to see what she doesn’t know.
At least that’s what I (also) claim now.

Her painting does not affirm a provocation against the picture as such. The artist does not rest on her defiance. She negotiates an image, consistently until its liberation. Concentrated, she cycles against calculated assertions. In doing so, she liberates not only the picture, but also its viewers. Released from meaning, they can devote themselves to the pure texture. What initially begins as a wild coincidence becomes more and more the result of a confrontation, whose intrinsic necessity storms at us with the power of a force of nature.

There is a bedstead! She fights. The furore of her paintings is the visualisation of what one does not understand, next to all that one thinks one has understood. A bit like a space telescope. The artists‘ works don’t just introduce themselves and declare: Hello, I’m „Title“ from the year 2023. Is that…? Yes, that is definitely a dog.

First, the artist exposes herself to a situation. The material is loud and does not offer itself as a flat open space. It is a counterpart to be taken seriously. Her first step is a reaction. Her painting process seems to uncover aesthetic phenomena like a self-determined workout.

Sore muscles. Stinging heel spurs. It can be brutal.

I am not the viewer. You see Polke, I see my dog, he sees a foot and she, over there, is quite sure that this is a self-portrait. Maybe it’s vetches, which tendril into diffuse daylight. Dark clouds over Bottrop-Kirchhellen. In any case, they are top views, not panoramic windows.

Are you thinking of Basquiat? What is a screen?

What is it?

I see, I think.
You’re astonished.

Luisa Schlotterbeck

A new record by Periode will also be released on 25.08.2023 by SUEZAN STUDIO with a cover by Michaela Eichwald. Periode are THOMAS WINKLER and ANDREAS REIHSE. For more information click here. The cover artwork features a 2019 painting by Michaela Eichwald that was included in the group exhibition Seven Painters (2019) at Green Naftali in New York, alongside works by Nicole Eisenman, Charline von Heyl, Jacqueline Humphries, Albert Oehlen, Chris Ofili and Laura Owens.

Neue Galerie Gladbeck
Freie Bahn ins Glück
August 25th, 2023 - October 29th, 2023