Silke otto knapp biography sampler

Most texts and exhibitions are preceded by a series of conversations. During one such recent conversation with Silke Otto-Knapp, she mentioned that often in her works ‘the motif is what remains’.

Silke otto knapp biography sampler

This comment, which initially seems to refer to a methodological or technical process in her painting, simultaneously points to a temporal structure that we encounter in the artist’s works. This places the practice within a set of relations, over and outside the sphere of painting.

Or to turn this equation on its head, affords scope for the painting to become a proscenium stage within which the motif that ‘remains’ develops a new dynamic and begins to exist in the pictorial space: set against its performative-theatrical, stage-like and painted backdrop.

Taking this interest in the transposition of motifs from one space to another and from one time to another as my point of departure, I would like to explore the various time-based approac