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
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