Maren Karlson: Staub (Störung) | Soft Opening
Artists are often inspired by architectural ruins. You can view Maren Karlson’s rough, depressing oils and cast a through-line back centuries to painters like Hubert Robert and Canaletto. But while her artistic ancestors focused on the remains of classical temples and houses, bathed in pretty Mediterranean light, Karlson took inspiration from something more humdrum - colder - uglier.
The eight oil and graphite pencil works on display right now at Soft Opening are reimagined versions of old photos from a German chemicals factory. The originals aren’t on display for comparison, but we’re told they show “a rotting floor, an eroding ceiling about to collapse, twisted pipes and a hole in the ground”.
Staub (Störung) 9 (2024)
Karlson distorts these scenes so as to be almost unrecognisable, just as artificially heated river water eventually distorted the floors and ceilings of the German factory. Some of her paint marks on the linen canvas rise up like scars. Her palette is relentlessly drab: bruisy yellows and browns, murky greys, highlight-free. The warped wooziness of what she portrays seems chemically induced.
The exhibition is cleverly curated. The lighting in the main gallery is harsh and unforgiving, which suits these paintings. Some of the larger works are propped up on irregular pieces of metal. One smaller one is arrestingly mounted within one of the steel pillars that prop up the ceiling; an industrial parody of a classical column. Pretty ugly. But arrestingly so.
Maren Karlson: Staub (Störung) is at Soft Opening (London). 21 June - 14 September 2024