Jutta Haeckel

Düsseldorf-based Jutta Haeckel may be the most original painter of her generation. Her recent paintings on jute—the strong, coarse, natural fiber that burlap is made of—utilize a series of unorthodox techniques to undermine the physical and conceptual precepts of painting.

For several years, Haeckel has been developing a technique that inverts traditional processes of depiction. Rather than painting a form, she paints the negative space around the form, confounding one’s perception of foreground and background as well as the meaning of “subject.” In her newest work, in addition to her already eccentric process, she applies pigments to the “backside” of the painting, then pushes paint through small gaps in the fabric—extruding it onto the “front”—further subverting the two-dimensional space of traditional painting.

Technically dichotomous—painted from both sides; seemingly gestural, yet quite controlled; at the same time abstract and representational; micro and macro—Haeckel’s paintings are studies in ambiguity.

Submitted by Hosfelt Gallery