Positions Berlin

Nici Jost's captivating series “Polymeer” invites viewers into a world where the pink color melds with shades of blue, orange, and yellow. The title thoroughly explains the artwork, also hinting at the artist’s creative process. Firstly, each number following the title marks the sequential order of her compositions, guiding us through a chronicle of her artistic search. Secondly, it suggests a linguistic twist, but not just that.

The artist does much more than juxtapose two terms - Polymer and Meer - she melds them together, simply adding an “e” to the primary noun. Thus, on one hand, it references a picturesque seascape that unfolds before our eyes. On the other hand, Nici presents a highly important and contemporary issue: the disproportionate amount of plastic in the oceans. According to the latest statistics for the year 2023, 88% of the ocean’s surface is polluted by plastic.

The artist creates the work using plastic bags collected during her distant travels across countries like China and Bhutan. Therefore, are these artworks a potential scenario of how the oceans would appear if the use of plastic isn't appropriately regulated in the years to come?

The questions linger, just as the essence of Nici’s “Polymeer” series lingers in our thoughts, prompting us to reflect on our impact on the world around us.

The "Nomads Square” is a series of works created during the quarantine period of 2020. Marc Schmitz, being physically confined in his studio in Berlin and in search of peace of mind, opted for a liberating creative routine. Thanks to the earlier journeys undertaken in the Mongolian steppes and complete immersion in nomadic culture and meditation, the artist has turned this challenging time into positive energy. Every day he composed a new work on canvases of the same size, 30x30 cm, layering oil colours with a spatula or similar tools.

The absence of a predefined process led to different images, some evolving gradually, others exploding spontaneously. The canvas becomes a place of introspection, a page of a diary filled with new thoughts and reflections, or, as the artist said, “an example of a changing location”. His creative process resembles a calligraphic practice, when in one go a master depicts what has been practiced over the years. The discipline to do so was trained by Marc during his academic years in Europe and mediation practices that he learned during his work in Asia.

Bignia Wehrli created two series of photographic drawings titled "Solar Circle." These projects are the result of intensive research and experimentation. Both works translate the interplay between the flow of a river and the apparent movement of the sun in the sky into photographic records, and both are the results of distinct journeys.

In the first series, the artist transformed a typewriter case into a floating pinhole camera on the Töss River. In 2017, Wehrli replaced the typewriter case with a sizeable wooden box, which traveled a distance of 14.4 km on the Rhine River during various days and hours in the month of August, capturing the sun. In this way, the sun, projected as a small point into the pinhole camera, recorded the journeys of the cameras on their respective rivers.

As the floating cameras tend to rotate, the resulting images show circular figures - or more precisely, spirals - with subtle deviations. On one hand, they capture the water flow with its curves, rapids, and halts, and on the other hand, their sizes vary over time due to the gradual ascent and descent of the sun. The artist’s approach is inquisitive and scientific, aimed at the exploration of the nature of light, and its extraterrestrial origin, unveiling hidden phenomena that become visible through recording.