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White Room 2013 Alfter, Germany

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The “color” white fascinates me. I reduced the original color of the chosen objects by covering them with white paint, though I purposefully did not drown the individual coloring. On some surfaces, such as rusty metal, I partly washed off the white paint. I emphasized shape and space by leveling out color.

I emphasize color - the object’s individual and historical coloring - through the reduction of color. For example, a viewer would notice at a glance that an object is green, red, or gray. But if the objects are all white and placed in a context, the viewer may approach each object more attentively and discover the subtle differences in the white tones.

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I like irregularly shaped, non-functional objects which offer themselves by telling me, “Look at me, I’m unique, take me,
use me, integrate me, transform me, respect me, transcend me, re-create me”.  I prefer this to purchased, clean, mass-produced products. I like the traces of wear, the irregularity of shape, uniqueness without intention and without restriction to a specific use. You cannot buy such material. Finding materials has an aspect of chance. For this installation I just walked around and collected things. I gave an answer to the overwhelming whiteness of the room when I fixed the objects on the wall, coloring all a broken, living white. I introduced a rhythm to that wall by adding structure and shapes. When I added a black woolen thread on the floor, I opened the room for the possibility of blackness and the thread object on the left wall came into being. After the first black object appeared on the wall – a thread grid surrounded by irregular but geometric white shapes – the black-and-white contrast started to dominate the room.

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I kept the individual character of each object, while at the same time I transformed it by alienating the object from any former purpose or context. When placed in this new invented context, the objects start interacting. They refer to each other and to different edges of the space. A big wooden block floats above a hat-shaped object of pebbles, so a dialogue grows between angular and round shapes. Divorced from functionality, each object gains a unique presence that determines its placement in relation to the other objects. I “listen” to them attentively and realize the developing structure of the artwork. This is the principal way in which my art takes form.

All objects play multiple roles. They constitute an assemblage and they are fixed points in a space. They bear their inherent character and individual history. They relate to each other and to the space.

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© Milena Kühnau 2014