Text: Astrid Amelungse-Kurth, photo: ©Andrea Jaksch
Painting researchers
The artists Sandra Kolondam and Klaus Soppe present romantic works
Höhenrain – “Our studio is a painter’s dream. Just the way you want it to be.” This is what Sandra Kolondam and Klaus Soppe say about the view of the Eichelberg, which is considered by the Höhenrain residents to be a “view into eternity”. The two artists have been living and working on the outskirts of Höhenrain for two years, in the immediate vicinity of the Starnberger brewery and the “World of Wine” wine shop. This weekend they will present their works at the wine tasting in the “World of Wine” event room H4. They will also be represented at the art mile in Wolfratshausen in the fall. The two of them looked for a studio for a long time. Now her 180 square meter painter’s paradise is on the edge of the village, “embedded in nature,” says Kolondam happily. “Everything you need for inspiration is there.” Her life partner Soppe, who grew up in the Eifel countryside, says: “I immediately felt at home.” The duo recently sent over 100 pictures to Heilbronn, where they will be presenting their first joint exhibition on four levels on the Dieter Schwarz Foundation's educational campus until mid-July - a highlight of their artists' careers. Both see themselves as researchers of painting. “For me, colors are like an orchestra. When it comes to painting, I’m a romantic,” says Soppe. The painter, who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and completed his training as a master student with Prof. Robin Page, attracted attention at the end of the 1990s with his photo-realistic paintings of city prostitutes. Since the turn of the millennium, he has been increasingly concerned with the effect of color, its radiance and color intensity, which he increases in his most recent landscape paintings through a dashed image structure in complementary colors.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2 ″][vc_column_text]His acrylic painting is neither gestural nor expressionistic; rather, it grows through the juxtaposition of calculated and disciplined brushstrokes. This requires careful handling of colors in order to create new atmospheric sounds. The large-format abstract landscapes have spatial depth and width; their motifs seem to float above the background, which seems to dissolve. As the distance from the viewer increases, the image takes on a three-dimensional effect. Kolondam also sees herself as a romantic. The master student of Rosa Loy and student of Markus Lüpertz works in oil “because of the feel” and applies the colors in a pasty and thick manner in her large-format paintings. They are hyper-real works that impress with their sensitive color sense and often artificial-looking colors. They are usually kept in cool pastel tones, but use warm colors to create a harmonious whole. The artist confidently combines seemingly contradictory, realistically drawn and painted motifs into a dynamic, harmonious and balanced picture. Contradictions in this world coexist in an equal and peaceful manner in the artist's visual world. The artificial coloring shows that it is a construct.
ASTRID AMELUNGSE-KURTH
for Munich Merkur