The body is the oldest subject in art. Until the early 20th century, it was wrapped in certain ideas and conventions of representation that followed the themes of art: religion, mythology, everyday life, landscape, and portraiture. Time and again, the body was the projection surface of emotions such as pain, lust, passion, vulnerability, or willpower, predominantly defined and staged by male artists. It was not until the Surrealists that the door was opened to a psychologically more complex world, in which the body could completely shed the garb of reality—neither always clearly assigned a gender nor explicitly staged for the male or female gaze. From that moment on, the body became a symbol: of dreams, of the unconscious, of fantasies, and the psyche of modern man. Often maltreated by fears, it increasingly functions as the scene of a spectacle of the tortured soul. Abstracted, deformed, or mechanized, it is present in all genres. Female artists, in particular, prefer to thematize the body in the new media of photography, video, and performance.
In recent years, however, the body has reappeared in painting and sculpture to a greater extent—and now signals a new artistic self-understanding that negotiates questions of gender, identity, and assignment in a completely new way. The artists Jean-Marie Appriou, Amy Feldman, Louisa Gagliardi, Kris Lemsalu, Conny Maier, Sofia Mitsola, and Tobias Pils embody a new, permeable generation that considers representation in new, often haunting, and visually demanding ways. There is often a startling fragility behind it. It captivates the gaze and opens up the view of the body—its freedom, fantasies, and fluidity.
Jean-Marie Appriou’s (born 1986 in Brest, FR) work is a menagerie of mythical creatures: hybrids of animal, human, and vegetable, demigods and the undead, suspended between past and future, morbid and mystical, mannered and melancholic, like figures from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The body is the central organ in this system of references, which combines the Middle Ages, Art Nouveau, and science fiction to create fantasy worlds in which nothing is constant. The ocean, where Appriou grew up, is the all-pervading metaphor for his work: it stands for death and rebirth, for danger and mystery, for poetry and artistic inspiration.
Amy Feldman’s (born 1981 in New Windsor, NY, US) large scale gray-on-gray abstractions pose a salient conversation between physical gesture and the formal language of abstraction. While a subdued palette imbues her paintings with a neutral objective mode, the artist deploys signs and symbols that hint at the body and its charge. Feldman’s paintings resemble human organs, pulsating in space, working in sync to deliver only the essential through acute simplification of form. Her graphic cartoon-esque approach and distilled heroic gesture work in tangent, displaying complex humor to earnest intent.
JEAN-MARIE APPRIOU
The Murmur
2020
Patinated aluminum, bronze, glass
Unique
180 x 162 x 148 cm / 70 7/8 x 63 3/4 x 58 1/4 in
APPRI47993
JEAN-MARIE APPRIOU
Planet of the Apes (Blue Java and Nutmeg)
2022
Handblown glass
45 x 36 x 30 cm / 17 3/4 x 14 1/8 x 11 3/4 in
APPRI50870
JEAN-MARIE APPRIOU
Planet of the Apes (Anthocyanins and Chlorophyll)
2022
Handblown glass
49 x 33 x 30 cm / 19 1/4 x 13 x 11 3/4 in
APPRI50869
JEAN-MARIE APPRIOU
Planet of the Apes (Beta Vulgaris Chioggia)
2022
Handblown glass
39 x 33 x 27 cm / 15 3/8 x 13 x 10 5/8 in
APPRI50868
AMY FELDMAN
Cold Stuff
2018
Acrylic, silkscreen ink, and spray paint on canvas
200.5 x 200.5 cm / 79 x 79 in
FELAM48726
AMY FELDMAN
Good Grid
2020
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
200.5 x 200.5 cm / 79 x 79 in
FELAM48733
AMY FELDMAN
Fog Face
2020
Acrylic, silkscreen ink, and impasto on canvas
200.5 x 200.5 cm / 79 x 79 in
FELAM48734
Louisa Gagliardi (born 1989 in Sion, CH) is completely committed to the figure. Her scenes have something dark and cloudy about them, appearing like dream frequencies—people are often only seen spliced in, from behind, as legs or heads, as if they were mere ghosts or fragments of memories. With colors shimmering like the applied gel or nail polish, the images appear digital, overdrawn, and surreal without betraying the artist’s hand. The mood is cold and smooth yet fragile, like a broken display.
Kris Lemsalu (born 1985 in Tallinn, EE) builds sculptures out of porcelain and ceramics, often peppered with textiles, plastic, and other materials. They appear grotesque, theatrical, in short: nightmarish and present themselves quite offensively, dominating the space and creeping under the skin. Lemsalu presents her new work, Motherpeace: ceramic vulvas on an iron bed frame from which hang coats belonging to the artist’s mother and grandmother, porcelain hands reaching out: a sculpture as two portraits.
LOUISA GAGLIARDI
Undercover
2022
Gel medium, nail polish, ink on PVC
170.5 x 240.5 x 5 cm / 67 1/8 x 94 5/8 x 2 in
GAGLI50601
LOUISA GAGLIARDI
Stage Fright
2021
Gel medium, ink on PVC
140.5 x 195 x 5 cm / 55 3/8 x 76 3/4 x 2 in
GAGLI50834
LOUISA GAGLIARDI
Hot Threads
2020
Gel medium, nail polish, ink on PVC
160.5 x 105 x 5 cm / 63 1/4 x 41 3/8 x 2 in
GAGLI50414
KRIS LEMSALU
Mama is in your bed
2022
Ceramics, fabric, metal
Approx. 110 x 217 x 117 cm / 43 1/4 x 85 3/8 x 46 1/8 in
LEMSA50773
KRIS LEMSALU
Crybaby I
2022
Ceramics, fabric, metal
140 x 90 x 80 cm / 55 1/8 x 35 3/8 x 31 1/2 in
LEMSA50774
KRIS LEMSALU
Crybaby II
2022
Ceramics, fabric, metal
140 x 90 x 80 cm / 55 1/8 x 35 3/8 x 31 1/2 in
LEMSA50775
Conny Maier (born in Berlin, DE) reduces her figures to the essential, almost bursting the pictorial space. Their roundish proportions are not right—hands too large, bodies serpentine, faces often disappearing behind hair and headgear. Maier’s figures often appear tormented, angry and groping, overwhelmed by the world, by their role in it, by their very limbs. Domestic objects such as vases and bowls appear, serving as empty allegories of the figures’ bodies.
Sofia Mitsola (born 1992 in Thessaloniki, GR) paints primarily female, invented characters and the atmospheres they inhabit using vibrant colors and a monumental scale. The female body is a recurring motif that allows her to play with ideas of confrontation, power, and control. Her protagonists’ coquettish gazes are always directed at the viewer—inviting, controlling, and consuming them. Appearing as individuals or in groups, her subjects are composed using radiant opaque colors and translucent layers that mimic water, an element that symbolizes transformation and catharsis.
CONNY MAIER
Füllen
2021
Oil, pigment, oilstick on canvas
Image 300 x 200 cm / 118 1/8 x 78 3/4 in
Frame 302.5 x 202.5 x 5 cm / 119 1/8 x 79 3/4 x 2 in
MAIER50448
CONNY MAIER
Baden
2021
Oil, pigment, oilstick on canvas
Image 175 x 300 cm / 68 7/8 x 118 1/8 in
Frame 177.5 x 302.5 x 5 cm / 69 7/8 x 119 1/8 x 2 in
MAIER50447
CONNY MAIER
Angebot
2021
Oil, oilstick on canvas
Image 180 x 140 cm / 70 7/8 x 55 1/8 in
Frame 183 x 142.5 x 5 cm / 72 x 56 1/8 x 2 in
MAIER50446
CONNY MAIER
Balanced
2021
Oil, oilstick on canvas
Image 180 x 140 cm / 70 7/8 x 55 1/8 in
Frame 183 x 143 x 5 cm / 72 x 56 1/4 x 2 in
MAIER50445
SOFIA MITSOLA
La Grande Baigneuse
2022
Oil on canvas
250.5 x 210.5 x 4 cm / 98 5/8 x 82 7/8 x 1 5/8 in
MITSO50607
SOFIA MITSOLA
Sarcotub
2022
Oil on linen
220.5 x 190.5 x 4 cm / 86 3/4 x 75 x 1 5/8 in
MITSO50606
SOFIA MITSOLA
Mirror and Fans
2022
Oil on canvas
60.5 x 80 x 4 cm / 23 7/8 x 31 1/2 x 1 5/8 in
MITSO50620
SOFIA MITSOLA
Sarcotub mini
2022
Oil on canvas
60 x 50.5 x 4.5 cm / 23 5/8 x 19 7/8 x 1 3/4 in
MITSO50772
Tobias Pils (born 1971 in Linz, AT) works exclusively in shades of grey. At first, one thinks his figures lean on the visual language of modernism—cubism and surrealism resonate, only to be catapulted into the present with a comic-like twist. The artist’s versatility becomes clear: bodies become non-representational, abstractions transform into eyes, noses, and mouths, lines become landscapes. His canvases never rest—the bodies burst with nervousness and energy, like living psychograms.
TOBIAS PILS
Women
2016/17
Mixed media on canvas
195.5 x 434 x 4 cm / 77 x 170 7/8 x 1 5/8 in
PILST43720
TOBIAS PILS
Woman 4 (birth)
2017
Mixed media on canvas
373 x 199 cm / 146 7/8 x 78 3/8 in
PILST43719
TOBIAS PILS
The Communication
2021
Oil on canvas
Image 236 x 198 cm / 92 7/8 x 78 in
Frame 241.5 x 204 x 6 cm / 95 1/8 x 80 3/8 x 2 3/8 in
PILST50399
TOBIAS PILS
Juggling
2021
Oil on canvas
Image 130 x 90 cm / 51 1/8 x 35 3/8 in
Frame 134 x 94 x 4.5 cm / 52 3/4 x 37 x 1 3/4 in
PILST50412
