Myriam Quiel
Paintings
27.01. – 22.06.2008

Myriam Quiel’s visual worlds seem to take place entirely in the here and now of our reality. Working in minute detail, the artist presents us with a world of objects whose components are familiar to us: we see toys, technical devices, furniture, and everyday items. But the seemingly harmless children’s room atmosphere of the paintings is deceptive. In view of the ambiguous drama of the images, our perception quickly changes. To the same extent that the works attract us with countless details, the artist leaves us alone in front of her paintings (…) Our gaze is drawn to absurd constellations of inanimate objects, whose arrangement shocks, disturbs, or at least puzzles us. (…) The artist presents us with an illusory world in which supermen bursting with energy court scantily clad Barbies, or in which moronic-looking theater puppets have lined up entire battalions of toys against each other at the living room table. (…) In her paintings, Myriam Quiel creates a world between reality and fiction, melancholy and horror, as well as academic painting and popular culture.
(from: Nils Ohlsen “Stage or Crime Scene? The Visual Worlds of Myriam Quiel” in “Myriam Quiel. 2007 Painting Award from the Cultural Foundation of the Oldenburg Public Insurance Companies”)

Curated by Thomas Trümper.