Isa Melsheimer
Nr. 465
2020
Gouache on paper
70 x 100 cm (27 1/2 x 39 3/8 in) (unframed)
79 x 109 x 4 cm (31 1/8 x 42 7/8 x 1 5/8 in) (framed)
From a new series of large-scale gouaches, this work depicts the interior of an otherwise sparsely furnished building with a central cylindrical shape of reddish drapes. The image draws on a project by the Dutch architecture firm Inside Outside that in 2011-12 introduced several textile and landscape interventions into the celebrated Maison Bordeaux originally constructed in 1994-98 by Rem Koolhaas' firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture, known as OMA. The colorful tiled floor draws on an Italian old master painting in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie. Paired with a grey ceiling reminiscent of concrete, while on the right differently colored vases are depicted, on the left a fragment of finely drawn drapery appears to hover ghostlike.
In her gouaches of architectural sites Isa Melsheimer constructs small autonomous worlds, seemingly detached from their real-world settings. The artist often choses source material showing the building in their original condition, that is, without signs of subsequent decay or dilapidation and without later architectural or landscaping additions. Since the found photographs on which she bases the gouaches are often in black and white, the artist effectively reimagines the colors of the buildings and their interiors, unrestrained by the strictures of verisimilitude.
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