find me in my fields of grass

(don’t) find me in my fields of grass …yet she actually does not want to be found. A space, uneven terrain, floating paintings, lines that break out of the picture space and draw a new realm. Are there shapes that smile? Outside, a photograph seems to show us the way—where Marie Athenstaedt awaits? The photograph was taken in Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous region located almost 5,000 kilometers (about 3,100 miles) away from Leipzig. It captures a mountain range of the Tien Shan mountains. From an elevated vantage point, one looks into a mountain valley. The ground of the rocky massif is strewn with countless pebbles that seem to form a gray-brown carpet of rubble. Only in the valley do light green hues mix with the gray-brown of the dry gravel. In the valley, a stream zigzags its own path. The lowest part of the valley appears darkened by a cloud, though we do not see it, as the sky and horizon are not in the frame. Instead, the view is pulled along the valley, where new mountain massifs line up one after another. This summer, the artist traversed part of the Tien Shan mountains. For about three weeks, she was accompanied by one other person, spending two of those weeks in the mountains. Sleeping at altitudes over 3,000 meters, camping, self-catering, and using a solar panel, but without a satellite phone. In the tradition of transit journeys, mountain hikes have long been a part of familial rites. Now, as the artist describes it, it is a time of immersion and quiet—escapism—but also listening and reading. Listening—to the partly nomadic shepherds and mountain farmers whose paths they crossed while herding sheep, goats, cows, and horses. Reading—the clouds, which indicate whether it is safe to continue or whether the forces of nature are unforgiving. Sun, snow, thunderstorms, torrential rain—weather in the mountains changes rapidly, and they encountered all variations of the aforementioned weather. Respecting the forces of nature—and also one’s own. Marie Athenstaedt has learned to interpret clouds—her father is a mountaineer. I believe I can recognize cloud streaks in the floating paintings, dark and perhaps gathering into a storm, or green-yellowish shimmering grass and rubble landscapes, almost as dry as a steppe, or icy blue-green stream water whose texture changes so quickly that it is imperceptible to the naked eye—but perhaps painterly it can be captured. Athenstaedt's artistic practice has for decades been devoted to the painterly exploration of natural structures. Following precise nature studies in the style of Maria Sibylla Merian and Ernst Haeckel, she has submerged herself into the material of nature through artistic utilization of technologized imaging techniques such as microscopy, not without daring to venture into telescopic expeditions into abstract color worlds, thereby opening the picture space of the canvas for associations with infinite galaxies, spectacular nebulae, and interstellar clouds. Here and now, Marie Athenstaedt again leads us into nature; she expands her art into real space and lets her image windows float in the exhibition room, turning the otherwise pleasantly walkable floor into rubble in some areas. Yet something prevents an unobstructed view of the painterly structures: a recurring graphic element. These distinctly outlined forms, which stand out clearly from Athenstaedt’s otherwise more changeable painting, have emerged in her work over the past two years and form a new constant: notably because they always share the same proportions, the same radius, and often even the same sizes from one painting to the next. Here, they set out to attain a recalibrated size once more: as expansive wall drawings sketching segment-rounded door openings or archways in the space. Passages to other worlds or countries that Athenstaedt conveys to us? I imagine how the stones on the ground have made their way into the exhibition space through these openings after having gradually slid down from the mountainside. The form consists of the basic geometric shapes of rectangles and circles. Thus, they can easily remind one of floor plans or— as described above—architectural elements. Athenstaedt calls them “arches,” but also “mouths.” They can smile but can also appear sad—depending on which way the painting ultimately hangs. The titles of the paintings are therefore “(no) smile.” And depending on how many mouths they display, the titles can sound even more forceful: “(no) smile (6x).” Okay, okay! I sense more and more how endangered everything is—not just our 'nature'—even our own authentic states of mind seem threatened. Putting on a good face for a game that increasingly consists of a flood of news (also about actual floods), in which the overwhelming abundance we— or at least I—often seem to be drowning, is exhausting. From the excess follows a deficiency—too little attention.