Eilike Schlenkhoff

From 26 April to 29 Juni 2024 the gallery is showing Eilike Schlenkhoff’s third solo exhibition. On display are new paintings untder the title “Alles und Nichts”.

A brushstroke, a splash of paint, a drawn gesture – these and other visual elements of abstract painting have induced many artists to undertake intensive explorations, which have not uncommonly given rise to an entire life’s work. Eilike Schlenkhoff also devotes herself to these kinds of fundamental forms of painting, but she pursues a sort of artistic camouflage that goes hand-in-hand with a surprising reevaluation of the means of creating pictures: taking a palpable pleasure in experimentation, she works on overcoming supposed opposites, as the abstract suddenly becomes a material object, takes on dimension, and alters its state, its meaning. 

In recent years this has led to the development of a complex pictorial cosmos whose treatment of painted figures allows us to perceive very different manifestations. These might be individual entities – a juicy brushstroke, for example, casts its shadow across the pictorial ground and so mutates into an ominous flying object. Or it is a goblet of flowers, a thread or a group of floating particles, which the painter traces in a pointed way. Or whole bundles of brushstrokes emerge, resembling a fountain, an ambiguous organism.

Her pictorial inventions are almost always grounded in a monochromatic surface, which becomes a kind of resonance chamber for pseudo-sculptural sensations. Recently, however, there are also wide, cloudy sky spaces to be discovered in her painting. In these, again, organic formations emerge, a flower perhaps, a brushwood or a bird, which, far from any intention of representation, arise solely from the modulation and movement of colour.

The exhibition will be opened on Friday, 26 April 2024 from 6 to 9 pm in the presence of the artist.

VITA
 

1984
born in Herne

2005-13
Academy of Fine Arts Münster,
master student of Prof. Cornelius Völker

2015
Working grant, Die Werkstatt, Altena

2016 ff.
Artist promotion program, Volksbank Münster

2017
Fellowship cultural foundation, Sparkasse Unna

2018/19
1. prize of Ramboux-Art-Award, Trier

2022
Phoenix Art Prize 2022

lives and works in Wuppertal

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

2024
Alles und Nichts, Rasche Ripken, Berlin

2023
Kunstverein Marburg (with Jürgen Staack)

2022
Kurvette, No Cube, Münster
Rauhfaserdackel, Rasche Ripken, Berlin

2021
Alles auf rot, Rasche Ripken, Berlin

2019
Gundula in Blau, Kunstverein Unna

2018
Stadtmuseum Simeonstift, Trier

2017
Quetschkommode, Kunstverein Unna

2016
Banalitäten, Stadtgalerie Altena
Peripherien, Galerie Clowns & Pferde, Essen

2014
Utopiastadt, Wuppertal

2013
Blumenkohl für Sarah, Galerie Marion Scharmann, Cologne

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

2022
Perron-Art Prize 2022, Kunsthaus Frankenthal
GIG-Gallery, Düsseldorf (with Mario Weinberg)

2020
Gesammelt und gesichtet. Ausgewählte Neuzugänge, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift, Trier
Shaped, Kunstverein Mönchengladbach
PRISMA, Rasche Ripken, Berlin

2019
Vereint – art from the collections of the savings banks, Financial Ministery of Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel
NEUN. Art promotion program, Haus am Roggenmarkt, Münster

2018
Raumbilder – Bildräume, Kunsthalle Cloppenburg

2017
DEW21 art award, Museum U, Dortmund
art award Hans Purrmann, Kulturhof Speyer
Good News, Kunstverein Ahlen
Die Große, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

2016
Kunst jetzt – art award Ida Gerhardi, Städtische Galerie Lüdenscheid
DEK 4, Stadtgalerie Altena
Cornelius Völker and master students, Städtische Galerie Eichenmüllerhaus, Lemgo

2015
Zeit, art award QQ, Hilden
Wild & sanft. Young positions from the Academy Münster, WGZ-Bank, Düsseldorf
Die Blaue Reiterin und ihr Freundeskreis, Frauenmuseum Bonn

2014
Personal pictures, Neuer Kunstverein Wuppertal
Falscher Hase, Galerie Münsterland, Emsdetten

2013
Malernormalaktivitäten, Representation of NRW, Brussels
Junge Kunst im Ruhrgebiet. Art award Wilhelm Zimolong, Alte Spedition, Gladbeck
Art Award of the Academy Münster, Kunsthalle Münster
Camera Obskur, Kunstraum Düsseldorf

2012
Das Geschlecht der Arbeit, Kunstverein Gelsenkirchen

2011
Das dritte Nasenloch, Bayer-Erholungsheim, Leverkusen

2009
Was machen wir mit Jonas?, Rathausgalerie Lippstadt

2008
Malerei 2008, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster