Paanch, Cinci, Fünf, Wǔ, Cinque

Five female artists explore topics such as transience and permanence, memory and lost narratives. They question the concepts of identity and home, play with perceptions and perspectives as well as investigate the dynamics of our virtual environment. Arpita, who calls herself a ‘memory collector’, deals with the relationship between present and past trauma by exploring inter-generational memories and inherited family archives. Through her weaved paper tapestries, for which she resorts to portraits from family archives as well as maps and the visualisation of recordings, she attempts to create a fabric that questions identity and the concept of home and that speaks for the forgotten and lost narratives. Maria’s paintings evolve through a gentle process of observation, relying on myth-beliefs, memory, and interior imagining. Her painterly landscapes and elaborate vegetal environments comb through the subconscious. Leaning on female surrealist tradition and their alchemical symbolism, she creates a sense of fluid materiality and permutations reminiscent of digital aesthetics. Alina Frieske creates digital compositions by cutting image material (online or mobile photos) into tiny fragments which she uses as a colour palette as well as brushstrokes, investigating how we are reflected in a virtual environment. The small cut-outs are multiplied, stretched and overlaid to form new figures and surroundings, thus exploring the potential of photography for the imaginary as well as questioning the dynamic between individual and multitude. Stella, an almost self-taught painter and the youngest among the five, also uses photos as a source of inspiration. In her photorealistic paintings of still life-like sceneries as well as depictions of friends’ and family gatherings, she likes to play with perspectives and reflections, transferring the visual language of cell phone photography to painting. Xuejing's works, in which she breathes new life into used objects or old, organic material, pose questions about transience and permanence, injury and healing. Dried fruit pods, teabags or leaves are patiently and meticulously sewn together or combined with different materials. Here, scars are beautiful and a reminder of what we have overcome. A deckchair is made of Ginko leaves and transparent lemons encapsulate a decaying version of themselves.