Hellermann's paintings are loosely based on an outline of the final period in
Nico's life where she fled Manchester for Ibiza. In Manchester she had lost
another battle against her ongoing drug addiction and sought solace on the
holiday island and a close relationship with Ari, the child she had given up at
birth. She died on the island in 1988, a brain Hemorrhage, road accident and
drug overdose have all, over the years, been mooted as the possible cause.vilma
Gold is pleased to present, On the Ground, by Sophie von Hellermann, the
inaugural exhibition at new premises on Vyner Street, London E2. Staged prior to
the gallery's formal renovation, On the Ground weaves new paintings into the
existing fabric of the semi-derelict building.
Sophie von Hellermann
known for her large-scale, romantic, pastel-washed canvases often installed to
suggest complex narrative threads. With a cast ranging from Marcel Duchamp to
Mick Jagger, previous shows have focused on such diverse themes as the death of
Nico, the life of Anastasia, and a retelling of Emily Bronte's Wuthering
Heights. For this exhibition von Hellermann has taken the 100th anniversary of
Einstein's scientific breakthrough E=mc2 as occasion to tackle the conflation of
art and science with her characteristic irony and wit. Wryly mixing the
languages of physics and painting, von Hellermann addresses the concerns of
time, light, and space in broad-brushed washes of acrylic color that look as if
they have floated right out of her thoughts.
The 1960s icon was infamous
for her sexual endeavours and drug abuse. Rather than capture Nico in all her
excess von Hellermann chooses to depict her before she lost her beauty, interest
in life, and eventually her death in relative obscurity, and mystery, in Ibiza
in 1988von Hellermann has chosen to paint from imagination rather than
photographs. Translating mental images into paint with an almost automatist
spontaneity, she explores the invented space of the unconscious rather than the
perspectival space of photography. The paintings seem almost to float away from
their physical support, a weightless effect achieved by von Hellermann's unique
application of pure pigment to unprimed canvas. Von Hellermann says, "what
interests me is how the mind works
what to Do Next...
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