About Arcadia

Painting on Photography

the title of an exhibition by Monika Kropshofer, to be opened in the foyer of media city leipzig at 6pm on Thursday March 29th 2012

In the presentation especially conceived for the exhibition, the artist will show works which originated in the years 2010 to 2012. The works have as their subject the motif of landscape and discuss the idealization between reality and fiction. Since antique times, Arcady has counted as the epitome of an idyllic, peaceful nature and stands for the longing for a serene and happy world of beautiful appearance.

By means of- partly subtle – alterations, Monika Kropshofer contrasts landscapes empty of people with echoes of architecture or quotations of civilization, so that new, virtual installations arise and question critically and ironically the original state of Arcady.

The starting-point of the works are photographs by the artist - not processed by a computer – of real landscapes, taken among other places in Myanmar, Iceland and Namibia. Theses are developed further by painting over, using transparent or opaque layers of colour. In this way, originals and unique works come into being.

Each work embodies the result of a personal dialogue between the artist and the photographic motif. The tense relationship arising from the antagonism between photography and painting finds corresponding elements in the content in a number of ways. Thus the borders between serial and individual, rational and emotional, conceptual and sensuous, manifest and secret are explored as far as poetry and geometry.