BERLIN.- Contemporary painting is a broad field. Apart from short-term trends, a wide variety of styles, approaches, techniques, reference systems and contexts exist in a thoroughly plural, equal coexistence. The target groups are diverse too. In times of growing online marketing, however, one increasingly encounters works that are deliberately conceived to look appealing, not least in digital images, and are therefore particularly social media-friendly or "instagrammable".

The paintings by Tamina Amadyar, Hinako Miyabayashi and Minh Lan Tran are of a different nature. Their full effect only becomes apparent when viewed in the flesh. On the one hand, this is due to a pronounced sense of material that unites the artists, despite all the differences in their working methods. All three use special painting materials to create very particular surfaces, color and light spaces. At the same time, their respective painterly gesture introduces a physicality and movement into the works which resembles complex choreographies. Herein manifests itself the close relationship between the artists' practice and calligraphy. Experiences, moods and sensations are inscribed in their paintings, sometimes literally in the case of Miyabayashi and Tran.

These are conveyed intersubjectively via the paintings and, in exchange with the viewer, also evoke their own associations. The abstraction that precedes this is synonymous with a narration which is more poetry than a description of facts, less linear in structure, but all the more open. There is also a spiritual level that has nothing to do with esotericism. The works are about presence, not representation. They are neither ironically distanced, nor analytical, let alone pop - at least not in the narrow sense. The painterly practice of Amadyar, Miyabayashi and Tran is approachable, emphatic and - each in its own unique way - physically and emotionally engaging.

In the exhibition Traces, each of the three artists is showing a recent, large-format work, to which an entire room of the gallery is dedicated. In the case of Berlin-based Tamina Amadyar it is pitch green, a work that is reminiscent of landscape painting not only because of its format, albeit in a greatly reduced form that relies on the power of color and its setting. Hinako Miyabayashi shows Where the Flying Voice Resides, a work that was painted on warm, sunny evenings during a residency in Berlin last summer. And although the artist has long since returned to her Japanese homeland, the painting continues to tell the story. United in Grief 2 by London-based Minh Lan Tran, who besides her focus on painting also practises performance art, was created under the impression of the severe earthquake that struck parts of Morocco at the beginning of September this year. Minh Lan Tran, who was in the country herself at the time, utilized Moroccan pigments and paper in this work. The painting is both a piece of art and a statement of solidarity with the bereaved families of the victims.

Tamina Amadyar, born 1989 in Kabul, had her first solo show at Galerie Guido W. Baudach in 2015 and has been represented by the gallery ever since.

Hinako Miyabayashi, born in 1997 in Hokkaido, lives and works in Tokyo. Her first solo exhibition recently took place at Galerie Bernd Kugler in Innsbruck. She has been represented by the said gallery since then.

Minh Lan Tran, born 1997 in Hong Kong, is represented by Jan Kaps, Cologne. She had her first solo show there in fall 2023.

Galerie Guido W. Baudach
Tamina Amadyar | Hinako Miyabayashi | Minh Lan Tran: TRACES
December 9th, 2023 - February 24th, 2024