Alejandra Seeber »Rather Ripped«

In her paintings, artist Alejandra Seeber (*1968, Buenos Aires, AR, lives
in New York, US) explores the painterly possibilities between
figuration and abstraction in her paintings. Their ambivalent imagery
cannot be decoded on a linear path, since in her colorful shining
paintings, out of nonrepresentational elements, narrative references
suddenly emerge. There are allusions to subjects that dissolve
instantly into expressive chromaticity and gestural dynamics. These
dichotomies and the encounter of different motives let her works
become many-faceted and surprising.

Seeber’s new exhibition at Häusler Contemporary Munich is called
»Rather Ripped« and includes works from the past two years. With the
title, the artist refers to the overall design concept, which was created
especially for our gallery space: rags are ripped off the wallpaper so
that flat, pointed reliefs like stalactites remain which will be
transformed by the artist into a all connectional wall painting. For the
first time Seeber had realized such a wall work with wallpaper scraps
in 2003, and it seemed like a hint of fate when the American rock
band Sonic Youth published an album shortly afterwards called
»Rather Ripped«. The name of her exhibition with us thus also
emphasizes this important step in her artistic work.

In this impressive, cave-like setting, Seeber presents among others
her latest series of works, »Taxi« and »Knitt«. The paintings in the
»Taxi« series are dynamic, colorful and, as is often the case with
Seeber, characterized by different pictorial elements. In most of the
works from this series a part-brick wall appears, giving support to the
otherwise freely floating motifs: water, a hint of sea landscapes,
fruits, naked bodies or pink colored, amorphous planes that are
readable as a reminiscence of the skin. The artist also interweaves
graphic and painterly elements in this series.

In contrast to these expressive compositions, she presents a
systematic approach in the »Knitt« series: »Discarded« works by the
artist, which were never intended for exhibitions, have been overlaid with a regular, comprehensive »knitting pattern«. The underlaid
motifs made unrecognizable appear here and there between the »knit
stitches«, producing hints of narratives - »as if from the unconscious,
from the past,« says the artist.
Held together by the landscape-like mural, our exhibition offers a
representative overview of Seeber's current work and illustrates the
characteristic power, diversity and innovation of her painterly
approach.