Lullin + Ferrari

Klodin Erb shows at Spark a new works from the Flowers for Sale series. These are intriguing flower paintings that only reveal themselves when viewed closely and allude to the selling off of nature. The pictures were all created on plasticized tablecloths, whose motifs Klodin Erb artfully continued, altered or added new elements to. She reworked the printed patterns to varying degrees. In some pictures, the floral background is hardly recognizable anymore, so the pattern has been overpainted and changed; in others, the printed colors and drawings are clearer and an essential part of the pictorial inventions. Klodin Erb deals with these different levels of reality – the artificial printed plastic ground and her own subtle painterly settings – in a sovereign manner. She traverses the different levels of reality with a sure conviction. As always, painting is put to the test in Klodin Erb’s work: She finds a form in which painting, in this case the burdened genre of the flower painting, can assert itself in the digital present.

Klodin Erb (*1963) is one of the best-known Swiss painters of her generation. In her expressive, fantastic visual worlds, the artist reacts seismographically to the social and medial atmospheres and situations of the present. Thereby the theme often determines the form: In accordance with the specific topic, the artist uses different painting techniques; she underlines, emphasizes, accentuates and thus interweaves form and content to maximum expressiveness and painting power. Her works are always set in the now. Formal influences come from popular and net culture as well as art history, combined with a great love for experimentation and a continuous exploration of the boundaries of painting. Time and again, the artist also makes excursions into other media such as film, installation or drawing. These prove to be extremely inspiring and fruitful for new pictorial inventions, which the artist then in turn incorporates into her painting. Klodin Erb lives and works in Zurich and teaches at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Department of Design and Art. Her works are represented in numerous public and private collections worldwide and are regularly exhibited in museums including the Helen Dahm Museum, Oetwil am See, 2022 (s), Museum Langmatt, Baden, 2022 (g), Centre culturel suisse, Paris, 2022 (g), Museum im Bellpark, Kriens, 2020 (g), Kunst Museum Winterthur, 2019 (g), Kunstmuseum Solothurn 2019 (g), Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel, 2018 (s), Museum der Brotkultur, Ulm, 2018 (g), Kunstmuseum Luzern, 2017 (g), Kunstmuseum Bern, 2017 (g), Villa Bernasconi, Genf, 2017 (g), Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, 2014 (g), Kunstmuseum Olten, 2013 (g), Haus für Kunst Uri, Altdorf, 2011 (g), Kunst(Zeug)Haus, Rapperswil, 2010 (g), Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen, 2008 (s).