It is hard to believe: She has never held a paintbrush in her hand; painting is just not her thing. Yet a reading of the picture invokes all the elements that can be spontaneously described as genuinely painterly. Sparkling shades of color, flowing contours, an opulence that positively celebrates its object in a large scale format. And finally, the choice of a still life: Like no other genre in modern painting, the still life, with the quiet presence of its objects, addresses the act of seeing, of show.

Only on closer inspection does it become evident that, in the face of these opulent and lush creations, we are dealing only indirectly with painting and much more with a self-reflexive artistic position: Anna Amadio boldly confronts the potency of tradition, appropriating indisputable master works á la Cezanne, Morandi or Macke in order to concurrently preserve and transform them in her own distinct dynamic gesture. Amadio pays heed to her idols, taking both structure and color value seriously in her use of pigmented glue and acrylic. It is both the ironic as well as futile attempt at preservation that undermines the compositional and color stability: Welded into a transparent membrane, the layer of color flows downward, bringing about an uncontrolled merging of vases, flowers, plates and fruit. Air-tight, the picture threatens to asphyxiate – and blossoms. That is the still life (“matures mortes”) paired with automatism (“ecriture automatique”). Exposed to the natural course of things, painting awakens from its static state, vehemently demanding new and renewed attention.
Anna Amadio works with a system of rules in which the characteristics of the materials selected decisively co-determine the appearance of her art. Randomness is allowed to intervene, is meant to rebel, and even more: it is meant to rebel against the dogmatic assertion of the definitive and image or body.

Heated at a high temperature, the thin synthetic membrane (in Wächter/Guard) contracts, becomes malleable and still follows a seemingly muscular movement that pursues its own dictates. Pigmented glue flows out onto the surface, tenuously seeking contact with the ground, and caricatures a pedestal. A satire on sculpture? – Most certainly. Und a declaration of love for art, a “Capriccio” playfully putting pressure on its genres.

Text Isabel Zürcher

Translation Barbara Heck

Photos Gallery Michael Wiesehöfer, Cologne