Sophie von Hellermann
Born in 1975 in Munich, Sophie von Hellermann lives and works in Margate. She was one of the first artists to settle in the town which has since become a thriving creative hub. She studied at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf and the Royal College of Art, London. Her subject matter ranges from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights to Einstein’s revolutionary physics to the life of Nico from The Velvet Underground. She portrays these subjects with the same token lightness, blurring public fable with romantic vision.
In von Hellermann’s works, personal narratives and fantasies are the product of desire and partial perceptions, bleeding into one another within a figuration characterised by ambiguous moments and abstract spaces. Empty spaces help make her works more evocative, giving them the power to absorb the gaze, and then to open the imaginary and the memory of sensation. The subjects of these works, which are essentially narrative, stand at the intersection of the personal and the collective history that nourishes her imaginary, although there is no clear-cut line separating the two. Swift execution and abundant output, a casual style, a constant mixing of the trivial and the grandiose – these are the methods she uses to transgress the …
Born in 1975 in Munich, Sophie von Hellermann lives and works in Margate. She was one of the first artists to settle in the town which has since become a thriving creative hub. She studied at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf and the Royal College of Art, London. Her subject matter ranges from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights to Einstein’s revolutionary physics to the life of Nico from The Velvet Underground. She portrays these subjects with the same token lightness, blurring public fable with romantic vision.
In von Hellermann’s works, personal narratives and fantasies are the product of desire and partial perceptions, bleeding into one another within a figuration characterised by ambiguous moments and abstract spaces. Empty spaces help make her works more evocative, giving them the power to absorb the gaze, and then to open the imaginary and the memory of sensation. The subjects of these works, which are essentially narrative, stand at the intersection of the personal and the collective history that nourishes her imaginary, although there is no clear-cut line separating the two. Swift execution and abundant output, a casual style, a constant mixing of the trivial and the grandiose – these are the methods she uses to transgress the rules of pictorial propriety.
Courtesy of Counter Editions
