Seasons of the Soul
KARIN LAMBRECHT (UK)
Painter, sculptor, and engraver Karin Lambrecht is a pioneering artist of Brazil’s 1980s generation. Born 1957 in Porto Alegre, she studied at the Instituto de Artes da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. As part of the Geração 80, her practice is rooted in the tradition of gestural abstraction. In her paintings, drawings, and objects, Lambrecht employs vibrant pigments she produces herself, as well as organic materials, including rainwater, earth, animal blood and honey.
Her work incorporates recurring motifs, including cooper crosses, which appear in different forms, indicating Lambrecht’s search for the sacred. Paradoxically, the artist denies her interest in religion and religious institutions as she explores the spaces between religious and secular aesthetics. Hers is a secular theology, a pantheistic vitalism grown meditative.
Nature is the clue and muse for Lambrecht. “Sky”, “rain”, “sun”, “house”, “garden”, “bone”, “sea”… Listing these handwritten, enigmatic words throughout her recent images indicates Lambrecht’s imagistic syntax and its metatext. By turning things into words and nature into chromatic space, she establishes a fresh relationship between the self and the cosmos – large and small, the one and the many, between painting and language.
Her work also reflects international influences; she participated in mail art networks in the late 1970s, which provided a means to share art outside of institutions and to connect with artists worldwide during the isolating period of the military dictatorship in Brazil. Lambrecht moved to West Berlin in 1980 to study at the Hochschule der Künste, where she came into contact with artists such as Joseph Beuys, who would have a continued influence on her practice following her return to Brazil in 1983. In 1984, she participated in the seminal exhibition ‘Como vai você, Geração 80?’ (How are you doing, 80s generation?) in Rio de Janeiro, concurrent with vast Diretas Já protests around Brazil, which called for direct and free presidential elections. In 1986, Lambrecht took up a residency at the Millay Colony for Arts in New York State, a time during which she met Louise Bourgeoise in New York City.
Lambrecht continues to work in Broadstairs, UK, where she moved in 2017.
Her work is represented in important international collections, including Fundação Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, USA; Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Exhibition period: 31 May 2024 – 25 August 2024
