Esther Stocker | Geometric abstraction and perception

Posted on 28/07/2011 by W&V

Esther Stocker’s work mainly consists of paintings, photo’s and installations in an abstract and geometrical perspective, the various genres being closely related to each other.She works with a visually complex repertory of geometric sign and grid systems which explore the general conditions of perception and, in a broader sense, the effects of digital image technologies.
Esther Stocker’s reflexion is focused on the question: “How is a perfect system imperfect in reality?” Her geometric structures are based upon eternally self-repeating modules that create a seemingly ordered visual rhythm, to which the artist adds aberrations in order to generate an adjacent but new rhythm. This introduction of deviation in the optical balance, similar to 16th century’s mannerist architectural approach, creates surprise and emotion through the purposeful disruption of order and plane dimension.

Esther Stocker presents her work in her first solo show in France from the September 10 to October 15, 2011 at the Alberta Pane Gallery, Paris. This exhibition carries the title: Dirty Geometry.

Photos by: Esther Stocker, Sacha Georg, Michael Goldgruber, Jan Mahr | Esther Stocker website |

Felice Varini | Point of view

Posted on 05/05/2011 by W&V

Felice Varini was born in 1952 in Locarno, Switzerland. and currently lives in Paris. He creates fascinating optical art.
His field of action is architectural and urban space and everything that constitutes such spaces. These spaces are and remain the original media for his painting. He works “on site”, each time in a different space and his work develops itself in relation to the spaces he encounters. The paintings are characterized by geometric shapes and by a single vantage point from which the viewer can see the complete painting, while various ‘broken’ fragmented shapes are seen from various other view points.

Felice Varini about his work:

“I generally roam through the space noting its architecture, materials, history and function. From these spatial data and in reference to the last piece I produced, I designate a specific vantage point for viewing from which my intervention takes shape.

The vantage point is carefully chosen: it is generally situated at my eye level and located preferably along an inevitable route, for instance an aperture between one room and another, a landing… I do not, however, make a rule out of this, for all spaces do not systematically possess an evident line. It is often an arbitrary choice. The vantage point will function as a reading point, that is to say, as a potential starting point to approaching painting and space.

The painted form achieves its coherence when the viewer stands at the vantage point.When he* moves out of it, the work meets with space generating infinite vantage points on the form. It is not therefore through this original vantage point that I see the work achieved; it takes place in the set of vantage points the viewer can have on it.

If I establish a particular relation to architectural features that influence the installation shape, my work still preserves its independence whatever architectural spaces I encounter. I start from an actual situation to construct my painting. Reality is never altered, erased or modified, it interests and seduces me in all its complexity. I work “here and now”.”

Photos by: Felice Varini | Video by: Christophe Loizillon | Felice Varini website

Erika Hock conceptual objects and pressure

Posted on 05/02/2010 by W&V

“Weil ich es sage” (Because I say so) is an installation by the German artist Erika Hock. The title of the work reminds one of the conceptual writing piece by Robert Rauschenberg ( This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so). But ,looking at the other works and their titles in the series (how to love a bomb, gebeugt, es musste sein), Hock links more to the fact that she is challenging the resistance of a “strong, seemingly unmovable obstacle or barrier”,physical as well as mental. She increases the pressure with a belt on a “virtual” solid wall or block to a point where it bends and breaks, she drops a large solid cube so it damages by the impact but also under its own weight. The rigidness object reveals its weakness, its smooth skin cracks, it’s authority flows away and it becomes fragile. The clean and sharp geometry gets affected, distorted and damaged. Forged by pressure, a concept which also can be seen in and linked to the Imploded Sculptures by Ewerdt Hilgemann. In these sculptures Hilgemann used also external pressure, in his case created by a vacuum inside the object, to reshape large stainless steel geometric bodies. But where Hilgemann uses these real rigid materials for his objects, Hock basically creates the illusion of a rigid objects by using wood, gypsum cardboard, latex foam and adhesive polishing plaster. This fact adds yet another layer to the conceptual content and meaning of her works.

Hock has made a strong statement with this series of interesting conceptual pieces.

Photos: Erika Hock | Conceptual Installations

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Tag Archives: geometry

Esther Stocker | Geometric abstraction and perception

Felice Varini | Point of view

Erika Hock conceptual objects and pressure