EMMA KLING & PAUL ROBAS - Wear Out

EMMA KLING & PAUL ROBAS - Wear Out

"Wear Out"

With works by Emma Kling and Paul Robas

Project space Zieglergasse 46, 1070 Vienna

Opening: July 2, 2021, 18:00 

Duration: July 3 - July 16

list of works 

Opening hours: Wednesday - Friday : 3 - 7 pm, Saturday July 3rd, 3 - 6 pm and by appointment

In their paintings, artist Emma Kling and artist Paul Robas deal in different ways with the individual experience of everyday life and everyday perception.

People and objects, scenes in the environment, form a starting point for Paul Robas, which he abstracts in his paintings with intense colors on various material supports. At first glance, the motifs depicted in the pictures seem easy to decipher; an object or an action is shown that reminds us of a familiar pattern from everyday life. The colors and the cropped nature of the works are challenging, depending on the position the viewer takes - whether up close or from a distance, as part of a group of works or as a single painting, the character of the pictures changes in terms of the subject and the effect of the surface.

The works of artist Emma Kling also deal with people's everyday experience in their own way. Environment refers to the medium of textiles as a cover, a layer that accompanies people. In her artistic work, she examines textiles in their material-specific nature as skin-like phenomena that have a life of their own, a character. Human skin and textiles meet at countless points of contact and become one - the body moves the fabric and the fabric shapes the body. Last but not least, questions of personal expression and identity on the one hand, and the process of putting on and taking off layers on the other, play a central role.

"Wear Out" takes up the process of removal in a media-specific way in relation to the paintings and their creation process. At the same time, wearing out can also be interpreted thematically in the sense that it contains hidden potentials: on the one hand - despite all the ordinariness that characterizes everyday life in the form of recurring patterns and rituals - to be attentive to the non-obvious, and on the other hand - despite all routines - to have the opportunity to create something new.

Paul Robas 

My work deals with everyday situations. I take a critical look at social, political and cultural aspects of society. My inspiration comes from what I have experienced and seen. Urban landscapes or domestic interiors are frequent settings for my paintings. The characters that inhabit my pictures are sometimes painted figuratively, sometimes more abstractly. This is how I try to understand my environment when I work. When exhibiting, interesting conversations arise that lead to other insights and transfer the paintings back into a social context and discourse.

My medium is painting, and color is a central part of the work. It is applied to the support layer by layer and in different consistencies, creating different haptic surfaces. In this way, I try to transfer the traditional, historically burdened medium of painting into the present day and ask myself the question of where painting is heading and whether it still has any social relevance.

More about Paul Robas >>>

Emma Kling

I see my work process as a coherent story in which I work in series. The new work cycles are created as a reaction to the last pictures. The textile materials and the folds are constant companions. The two media, painting and textiles, have similar media-specific essences. Both thematize materiality, surface and colourfulness. It therefore seems obvious to me to depict these fabrics on textile painting surfaces, but also somewhat paradoxical at the same time, as their qualities show many parallels.

I confront myself with identity issues in my work. Ultimately, I see textiles as layers of identity that have merged with the layers of human skin and the body over the years.

Questions of identity politics have occupied me intensively, not only since my emigration from Hungary to Austria. In my process, I deal with the question of the free choice of identities, language, home and one's own body.

More about Emma Kling >>>

The exhibition is supported by the Neubau Cultural Commission.
We would like to thank Enuma Elis Kulturverein for making the space available.
The exhibition was created in collaboration with Transcultural Emancipation - Verein zur Förderung von Kunst- und Kulturprojekten.

Sponsor

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Exhibition views Wear Out, Emma Kling & Paul Robas
Project space Zieglergasse - Galerie Rudolf Leeb, 2021

Exhibition view War Out - Project space Zieglergasse Galerie Ruzdolf Leebleft work: Emma Kling, Häutung Rosa, oil on cotton, 120 x 70 cm, 2021
work on the right: Paul Robas, Untitled, acrylic on wood, 42 x 29.8 cm, 2021

work on the right: Paul Robas, Untitled, acrylic on wood, 39.8 x 30 cm, 2020

left work: Paul Robas, Untitled, acrylic and oil on wood, 42 x 29.5 cm, 2021

Emma Kling, Small Breast I-II, oil on cotton, each 30 x 20 cm, 2021