In this body of work, Transitions, created for the monastery church in Warburg, I work with the form of the circle, which holds a multilayered significance within Christian iconography. I engage the circle as a symbol of the divine and the infinite, of recurrence and perfection, but also of protection and inner contemplation. At the same time, it alludes to the halo as a sign of transcendent presence. I draw on this symbolic tradition and deliberately open it up to further associations.
The objects, freely suspended in space, can be read as shields, dreamcatchers, gates, or passages into pictorial spaces. They also evoke references to round church windows or to the motif of the wheel of eternal recurrence. Likewise, the idea of the nine spheres of Paradise from Dante’s Divine Comedy may resonate as a conceptual echo.
At the same time, the materiality of the objects—paper, cardboard, wood, and partly bamboo—refers to constructions found in kite-making. Yet these objects cannot fly. They hang on strings in space and appear as overloaded flight simulacra. For me, this creates a field of tension between ascent and attachment, between the longing for the heavens and the reality of being bound to the earth.
The installation deliberately enters into dialogue with the church’s Baroque high altar, whose large-format painting depicts the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. My works are not conceived as illustrations, but rather as contemporary reflections on transcendence, transformation (transitions), and spiritual movement.
In this exhibition, I combine my abstract, process-oriented painting with sculptural and installative elements. The nine paintings, executed in acrylic and chalk on circular picture objects, will be presented primarily in the choir of the church. There, an interplay of color, form, space, and movement emerges, integrating the architectural and spiritual context of the church into the work.
(10 March 2026)