SABINE BANOVIC
MODULAR TOTEM

December 17, 2016 - Feburary 11, 2017
Opening: December 16, 2016, 6 - 9 pm Uhr

 The black and white drawings by the Berlin-based artist Sabine Banovic constantly balance on the fine line between what is consciously undefined and associative representational. Dark, organically spreading colour gradients and precisely drawn lines are juxtaposed. Out of these strong contrasts powerful dynamics arise. Beyond any certainty about the meaning of what has been seen, the viewer finds oneself put directly in a state of contemplating, associating, and deciphering. 

With her new works, Sabine Banovic once again expands her artistic spectrum. Aside from klecksography and graphic elements on paper and canvas, geometrical folds, printing and chemical processes determine the complexion of her images. The improvisational approach to the accidental and the graphical controlling of what is being created are the keys to a poetic pictorial formation, that, as a part of a constant creative stream, then again results into another. Action and reaction constantly alternate in the process of developing the image, requiring from the artist her relaxed sovereignty as well as her courage to experiment. In the moment of drawing her hand is able to let the process of thinking become visible.

Like two facing poles, the largest works in the exhibition embody those antagonisms that coexist in mutual tension in almost all of Sabine Banovic’s drawings: Five paintings, resembling Rorschach cards stacked vertically one above the other, build a "modular totem“ like the shadow of a sculpturally ornamented post. Despite the deterministic notion of a totem, these elements are versatile in structure as well as in their psychological interpretation. The symmetrical ink stains seem as if they connect to a secret plan, to a hidden layer of meaning that is calling the viewer to be discovered individually. The mental reflections of those images are prompting questions about one’s own personality, and offer possibilities of exploring individuality and identity in general.

Tightly connected to the idea of the viewer’s mental engagement with the artwork, "Virgin Territory“ is a vast net of elastic strings and drop-shaped weights, forming an abstract perspective framework of an imagined space. Stunningly few and simple instruments are used for this radically reduced installation that embraces the wall and the viewer. Under the given gravitational forces, the piece establishes a fine balance between tension and tranquillity, heaviness and lightness to the extreme.

For a long time, the viewer can explore Sabine Banovic's works and find new associations, thoughts, and projections that are mutually dependent, excluding or simply coexisting. Often, the images reach far beyond material, frames and borders, can be endlessly continued and thought further. Shifting between chaos and order, impermanence and constancy, they may be a landscape, a body, a movement or a sound image to the seeking beholder — and sometimes all of this at the same time.