For her solo exhibition Ruby by the Lake at Kunstverein Friedrichshafen, painter Rachel von Morgenstern has created works that respond to the very different architectural conditions and spatial atmospheres of the two exhibition rooms. Her abstract, light-filled, and seemingly weightless paintings, sculptures, and light objects emphasize the spatial structure while establishing resonances with both the interior and the exterior space.

The artist often uses transparent painting surfaces that leave the stretcher frame visible, thereby making it an integral part of the composition. This gives the paintings a window-like quality, evoking a notion deeply rooted in the history of painting: the idea of the image as a window that mediates between inside and outside, creating both views and outlooks. The interior is not defined as sealed off from the outside world but instead enters into dialogue with it. One might even see, in the abstract paintings, the play of waves from nearby Lake Constance or the shimmering colors of the setting sun reflected on its surface.

Although in recent years von Morgenstern has also developed sculptural works—and for the first time, light objects for this exhibition at Kunstverein Friedrichshafen—painting remains at the core of her artistic practice. Color, surface, form, and line interact in her compositions, creating tensions in which the painter’s gesture remains clearly visible. Color is always conceived in relation to light, making it a natural progression for the artist to illuminate her colors in the light objects, experimenting playfully with the medium of painting.

Rachel von Morgenstern takes the two-dimensional image as a starting point to explore and expand the traditional boundaries of painting in a variety of ways. Beginning with her transparent paintings, the artist creates sculptures from—

Text / Curator: Hannah Eckstein