Foto: Martina Gasser

solo exhibition
TRAUMA TOUCHING ART
ECOTS Konferenz 2011 (European Conference on Traumatic Stress) - Großer Festsaal Universität Wien
03.-05.06.11
paintings, photographs

Exhibition during the 12th European Conference on Traumatic Stress
3-5 June 2011, Vienna

Foto: Martina Gasser; ECOTS 2011; Großer Festsaal; Universität Wien

Pressetext:

"In 1998, Martina Gasser projects in a performance a 100-fold magnified finger print of a thumb tip onto herself, a camera being her only witness. Like a camouflage this seemingly untreacherous evidence and symbol of individuality gives rise to formations that seemingly dissolve Gassers face and body, plainly her whole identity is deformed."
Text: Marlene Gölz, 2011

Martina Gasser presents a selection of her works, which deal with the issues of her identity, dissolution and damage. Some works are playing with ambiguities, leaving space for free associations by the spectator.

The series "Labyr Marritime" from 1997, in which a labyrinth is projected onto the body of the artist, strikes on first observation with its strict, graphical composition and aesthetic. The labyrinth without wrong tracks, but the longest possible way to the center, describes a parable to life, death being the goal. When watching the photographs longer and reading the complementary title of the particular series (e.g. centre/bull’s eye) the woman can suddenly be viewed as a target through the eye of a sniper.

The photos and paintings "Dactyl Marritime" counteract the term of individuality of one’s own unique fingerprint.

"In art, the equivalent to a fingerprint is the distinctive brushstroke, displaying the personality of the artist – however, searching for this in the artist’s paintings is mostly in vain. Gasser projects her enlarged fingerprint banishing it onto a scrupulously sleek canvas, whereby she caricatures the seeming spontaneity, with which such a print is normally produced, and the evidence of artistic authorship."
Text: Marlene Gölz, 2011

In her works "St. Sebastion modern" from 2010/2011, the arrow-struck Sebastion beholds looks at the viewer with a blend of provocation, pride and masochistic ecstasy. As in "Labyr marritime" the viewer finds him- or herself in the position of a voyeur or offender. In any case, one is on the other side.
Text: Martina Gasser 2011

Foto: Martina Gasser; ECOTS 2011; Großer Festsaal; Universität Wien


All contents © Martina Gasser (Bildrecht)