Galerie Kornfeld presents paintings by Cristina BanBan, Nick Dawes and Robert Fry alongside sculptures by artists Katharina Gerold and Susanne Roewer. The artists look into the combinations of form and color to tell the stories of human emotions; intertwined, complex and every changing.

The figurative works of artist Cristina BanBanare deep with human emotions depicted and derived from the artists personal experiences. New paintings by BanBan explore themes of aging, maternity and an undeniable focus on the female form and presence. Her figures unapologetically take up space in various positions as their flesh is exaggerated out of proportion, ballooning to envelop the entirety of the canvas. Whether working in harmony and support as in Big Mamaor mingled in a web of tension as in the work El Sueño Va Sobre El Tiempo (The Dream Goes Over Time) the central role is always female, in all her complexities of self expression, love and place. Using classical compositions of Renaissance art juxtaposed against the present-day collisions of culture, by placing her own depictions of the female body and contemporary woman within the imagery. The unexpected departure from societal expectations of women compells the viewer to consider the subject and its contradictions in a new context. Furthermore her pastel works on paper depict women in everyday activity, though mundane in their scenes and actions, the intensity of their anime watery eyes often full of exaggerated tears express a more layered emotional state.

The paintings of Nick Dawesengender responses from the viewer, not necessarily of specific identity with the subject but of emotional congruence; feelings of empathy, affinity and recognition. Succession is signified physically by a variety of means: the overlay of one color on another, by the orchestration and direction of the poured lines and shapes, by the implied sequential movements of the painter’s hand. The complexity of the surface is a necessary condition for the representation of layered emotions and feelings within his paintings. The separate fields of color overlap and interpenetrate each other and thus suggest a sequentiality in both space and time. The fluidity and process-like quality enable space for reflection on the historicity of the act of painting and of life. Dawes paintings are literal abstractions that transform what has been seen and thus develop a life of their own, freed from the duty to represent something. The functionality of the real object that gave the artist the impulse for his painting is thus suspended. The painting follows only its self imposed, art- inherent laws of color, form, harmony and dissonance.

The aesthetic nature of Robert Fry’s work conveys a depth of feeling, and a seemingly inexhaustible source of flexible thinking. His paintings are full of dignity; the product of passion checked with discipline and executed with a texturing technique that is uniquely his own. The nude body is often at the centre: playing with mechanisms like seriality and symmetry, fusing figurative and abstract forms, the artist explores the relationship of the individual with himself, his double and his fellows. His intricate, complex figures stand in pairs, naked, exposed and dominating the canvas as they simultaneously reveal and conceal truths about themselves. Fry's latest series Lost Mendepict the powerful and moving portrait of contemporary Men and masculinity. His often mirrored figures depict conflicting personalities as representatives of the same individual who challenge one another in their preconceived image of the male form and identity fueled by an element of autobiography. Fry is known for his signature use of varying realms of pinks and magentas as his central color palette, both as a reference to the colors historic position as a color of power and todays feminine associations with it as much as the use of one single color in differing states as an expression of simplified complexity and a challenge to the viewer to look closer and deeper at the minuscule changes in tones and feelings.

The sculptor Katharina Gerold, whose roots are in architecture, shows sculptures and reliefs of bronze and clay. Her barren and at the same time highly aesthetic sculptures are made of natural and yet artificially constructed fossils, depicting striking heads in sharp silhouette profiles looking into the world in two directions. The idiosyncratic faces express dual attitudes and characters of the individual as well as connections, responsibilities and visions. Through the balance between figurative and abstract, archaic and classical, the profile invites viewers to ask: who are you? And it asks back: And who are you? In the midst of life, such images of people arise from the gap between personal feelings and societal-political interest. They do not look at you directly. They do not communicate. They seem to expect nothing. Nevertheless, they have a strong presence that can not be denied. The asymmetrically of both halves of the face and the radical perturbing nature of the profile hits the viewer on a sharp psychological and emotional plane.

Susanne Roewer’s works combine the artist’s intense interest in materials with an artistic sensibility and conceptual wit. Her extensive research and observations lead her to historical figures and events, folk art and old fables, but also to current socio-political debates and events. The diversity of the themes reveals the contemporary in the historical, and returns that which is seemingly past back to the present. The process of the creative act also plays a decisive role in the sculpture and the sculptural objects of Roewer. These draw their tension from a combination of diverse, contrasting materials - hard Alabaster meets fragile glass as in the presented work “The World upon your Shoulder”. During the process of creation, the artist is frequently guided by the material and its specific qualities. Yet this is done consciously, revealing the assurance with which the artist is able to master and shape the diverse substances and materials. Her pieces develop from stories, always triggered by a poetic part of human life and society; absurd or romantic, heroic or nonsensical, political or stand-alone. Presenting contemporary sculpture as the necessary outcome of – firstly – the development and the skills as well as trial and error of mankind – secondly – hand in hand with mankind's will to give immaterial things a material expression, be it of power, transcendence, reason, freedom or love.