"Representations of Our Relation to the Environment. In her painting, Helene Appel reflects the things of everyday life with high precision. Appel presents her cropped subjects in plan view, on untreated canvas in a 1:1 scale. If one takes a closer look, though, this attitude reveals its radical nature. Detaching herself completely from the tradition of still life, Appel does not strive to develop a painterly signature, nor does she emphasize her distinctive ductus. Instead, she carefully seeks an adequate mode of expression for each of her pictorial objects, thus emphasizing their particular physical presence. Despite the realistic representation, Appel's works evoke a sense of a high degree of abstraction. The impression is that of a distanced look that creates a tension between the familiar and the unaccustomed questioning the relationship we have to our environment."-- Provided by publisher.
Contributions in English, German, and Italian; with non-English contributions translated into English.