Der Verstand ist isoliert im
Raum der Stille, wartet.
Unerklärt bleibt die Handlung.
Ein erfülltes Ritual.
Petra Höcker
Video Portrait - filmed & edited by Jonas Hoecker (c) 2022
Petra Höcker im Gespräch mit Dr. Peter Lodermeyer
→ Download Pdf
Die gestischen, materialbetonten Arbeiten der in Osnabrück lebenden Künstlerin Petra Höcker sprengen die Grenzen der Malerei zunehmend in Richtung Skulptur und Installation. Zentrales Thema ihrer Arbeit ist die Körperlichkeit in ihrer vitalen Intensität und gleichzeitigen Fremdheit der organischen Prozesse und Substanzen. Der Ambivalenz des Körperlichen werden die Bilder von Petra Höcker dadurch gerecht, dass sie in immer neuen Anläufen und mit wechselnden formalen Mitteln malerische Situationen schafft, die als mehrdeutige Analogien des Körperempfindens gelesen werden können. Dies geschieht nicht durch Abbildung physischer Zustände und Aktionen, sondern intuitiv und metaphorisch, durch die Kombination von Acryl-Farben mit ungewöhnlichen Malmaterialien wie transparenten Pasten oder milchig-durchscheinenden Substanzen, die eine Überlagerung verschiedener Bildschichten erlauben und Blicke in verborgene Bereiche andeuten. In den Bildern von Petra Höcker geht es um Transparenz und Schichtung, um Oberflächen und Übergänge in Tiefenräume, um feste und flüssige, wie in Bewegung festgehaltene Formen, die sich jedoch scheinbar jederzeit weiter verändern könnten. Im Wechselspiel zwischen plastisch ausgeprägten Formen, Texturen und amorphen Materialien scheinen sich innerhalb der Bildfelder simultan verschiedene Aufbau- und Zersetzungsprozesse abzuspielen.
text from the current folder "transparent"
acephalia, transparency, tender touch
about the new paintings and objects of Petra Höcker Dr. Peter Lodermeyer I 2016
you will see it, either you look at the paintings long and patiently or quite the opposite - a glimpse without purpose and without a preconceived opinion. right away, what you saw in petra höckers paintings at that moment was an abstract colorful form or a bundle of expressive gestures that are coagulating into a representational or even anthropomorphic form. all of a sudden you will recognize the shape of an outstretched or crouching humanly body, arms, legs, torso without a head. what could be construed as a separated shape of the head from the body, if at all traceable, will be floating as a pale wad of lines somewhere in a corner of the painting or completely released from the pain- ting to an unsettling presence, clamped by a heavy chain dangling from the ceiling in front of the painting.
the theme of the acephalia (missing of the head) will immediately release different associations. “the art of petra höcker is always centered around physi- calness in her most rudimental form“ would be the most likely interpretation of her work. it is always a lifelike happening that radically escapes from regular mental activity. in petra höcker’s newest peculiar delicate and surreal poetic ink drawings , the human bodies carrying heads; but, in a characteristic way these are bird heads, the heads from „irrational“ animals. to have a body, to be a body in our daily mundane banality and existential mysteriousness is a preconscious notion and something that happens independent from intel- lect and reason. physicalness implies sensuousness and vulnerability, pulsating blood in the veins, respiration, the need for sleep, growth, skin and hair, blood and mucus, attraction and disgust, birth and death- all this where with rational thinking will have difficulties.
petra höcker achieves in her paintings, drawings, objects and installations, penetrative pictures aiming at the incomprehensiveness of physicalness. she is able to pierce processes and mental states, which are ordinarily hiding from our common view but are much closer than we are usually willing to admit. these paintings (works) act against the typical apperception of the body. petra höcker seamlessly bypasses the common differentiation between beauty and ugly. she is focusing on the organic impression of the materials and on the unforeseeable coalescence of the colors. transparency as a property of the materials is certainly a central element of her work. the artist overlays her paintings and objects again and again totally or in parts with transparent substances, with animal skins, which enclose but also will rip open to unblock views into the abyss of the works.
in spite of all the radicalness, which is a big part of her work, petra höcker is never interested in triggering striking effects or in causing shocking impacts with her work. the utmost significance for her is what she calls „zarte berührung“ („tender touch“). vulnerability, in need of protection is the central theme of her art. the skin, with the function as a thin and fragile membrane between the body and the outside world stands as an exemplar for her work, which also contains a gentle trace of beauty that appears in tender golden spots or in the spring like heaving and new growth signaling green in her newer paintings.
post@petra-hoecker.de
Der Verstand ist isoliert im
Raum der Stille, wartet.
Unerklärt bleibt die Handlung.
Ein erfülltes Ritual.
Petra Höcker
Video Portrait - filmed & edited by Jonas Hoecker (c) 2022
Petra Höcker im Gespräch mit Dr. Peter Lodermeyer
→ Download Pdf
Die gestischen, materialbetonten Arbeiten der in Osnabrück lebenden Künstlerin Petra Höcker sprengen die Grenzen der Malerei zunehmend in Richtung Skulptur und Installation. Zentrales Thema ihrer Arbeit ist die Körperlichkeit in ihrer vitalen Intensität und gleichzeitigen Fremdheit der organischen Prozesse und Substanzen. Der Ambivalenz des Körperlichen werden die Bilder von Petra Höcker dadurch gerecht, dass sie in immer neuen Anläufen und mit wechselnden formalen Mitteln malerische Situationen schafft, die als mehrdeutige Analogien des Körperempfindens gelesen werden können. Dies geschieht nicht durch Abbildung physischer Zustände und Aktionen, sondern intuitiv und metaphorisch, durch die Kombination von Acryl-Farben mit ungewöhnlichen Malmaterialien wie transparenten Pasten oder milchig-durchscheinenden Substanzen, die eine Überlagerung verschiedener Bildschichten erlauben und Blicke in verborgene Bereiche andeuten. In den Bildern von Petra Höcker geht es um Transparenz und Schichtung, um Oberflächen und Übergänge in Tiefenräume, um feste und flüssige, wie in Bewegung festgehaltene Formen, die sich jedoch scheinbar jederzeit weiter verändern könnten. Im Wechselspiel zwischen plastisch ausgeprägten Formen, Texturen und amorphen Materialien scheinen sich innerhalb der Bildfelder simultan verschiedene Aufbau- und Zersetzungsprozesse abzuspielen.
text from the current folder "transparent"
acephalia, transparency, tender touch
about the new paintings and objects of Petra Höcker Dr. Peter Lodermeyer I 2016
you will see it, either you look at the paintings long and patiently or quite the opposite - a glimpse without purpose and without a preconceived opinion. right away, what you saw in petra höckers paintings at that moment was an abstract colorful form or a bundle of expressive gestures that are coagulating into a representational or even anthropomorphic form. all of a sudden you will recognize the shape of an outstretched or crouching humanly body, arms, legs, torso without a head. what could be construed as a separated shape of the head from the body, if at all traceable, will be floating as a pale wad of lines somewhere in a corner of the painting or completely released from the pain- ting to an unsettling presence, clamped by a heavy chain dangling from the ceiling in front of the painting.
the theme of the acephalia (missing of the head) will immediately release different associations. “the art of petra höcker is always centered around physi- calness in her most rudimental form“ would be the most likely interpretation of her work. it is always a lifelike happening that radically escapes from regular mental activity. in petra höcker’s newest peculiar delicate and surreal poetic ink drawings , the human bodies carrying heads; but, in a characteristic way these are bird heads, the heads from „irrational“ animals. to have a body, to be a body in our daily mundane banality and existential mysteriousness is a preconscious notion and something that happens independent from intel- lect and reason. physicalness implies sensuousness and vulnerability, pulsating blood in the veins, respiration, the need for sleep, growth, skin and hair, blood and mucus, attraction and disgust, birth and death- all this where with rational thinking will have difficulties.
petra höcker achieves in her paintings, drawings, objects and installations, penetrative pictures aiming at the incomprehensiveness of physicalness. she is able to pierce processes and mental states, which are ordinarily hiding from our common view but are much closer than we are usually willing to admit. these paintings (works) act against the typical apperception of the body. petra höcker seamlessly bypasses the common differentiation between beauty and ugly. she is focusing on the organic impression of the materials and on the unforeseeable coalescence of the colors. transparency as a property of the materials is certainly a central element of her work. the artist overlays her paintings and objects again and again totally or in parts with transparent substances, with animal skins, which enclose but also will rip open to unblock views into the abyss of the works.
in spite of all the radicalness, which is a big part of her work, petra höcker is never interested in triggering striking effects or in causing shocking impacts with her work. the utmost significance for her is what she calls „zarte berührung“ („tender touch“). vulnerability, in need of protection is the central theme of her art. the skin, with the function as a thin and fragile membrane between the body and the outside world stands as an exemplar for her work, which also contains a gentle trace of beauty that appears in tender golden spots or in the spring like heaving and new growth signaling green in her newer paintings.