Press, April 6, 2021 by Christopher Bruni
Tine Weppler’s investigations in form and color at her recent Artifact exhibition address various issues of cultural engagement. The play quality pervades these efforts in which one can discern figural shapes that hover tremulously over the surfaces. The near-evanescent movements of these forms are held further in check by the balanced and nuanced use of more concentrically held together fluid marks, such as spills, washes and drips. This systematic oscillation between space and the concentration of energy fields, which holds this space at bay creates a charged atmosphere which keeps us in the work’s thrall.
The artist explores the use of process and the unconscious as an exhilarating way to tear down the veils that prevent true perception to occur and the re-presentation of new experiences. What is particularly striking in many of Weppler’s images is the assured way the artist takes the best possible opportunities to enlarge her visual transformations in order for her even faintest phantom images to transform their visual character. The work itself is charged with expressiveness which we feel most directly as circuitous meandering of color and texture surge with an electric dynamism of her paintings. The artist’s vistas keep us suspended, in equipoise, between the edge of chaos and the brink of lucidity.
Christopher Bruni is an art critic living and working in Manhattan
PRESS RELEASE, Tine Weppler: Paintings
Dates: March 3–21, 2021
Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, by appointment 12–6 PM
ARTIFACT is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of paintings by a Danish artist Tine Weppler on March 3-21.
Weppler’s paintings are complex ones, which put a premium on expressionism by distorting colors, shapes, and surface in a highly personalized fashion. These sensations are realized through an embodied and lyrically suggestive figuration that encourages us to recapture the world through the fresh responses of an artist who is ultimately unconstrained by tradition or convention. Wedded to this fresh perspective is the artist’s equally persuasive emphasis on capturing fleeting perceptions of time and space.
The artist’s paintings are filled with action, there is a tumultuous undercurrent of painterly energy coursing through her materials. They add a vibrant dynamism referring both to a female body in the context of pop-culture. Spatial compositions that result appear to be made of movement and constantly shifting veils of color applications. This veiling is the embodiment for Weppler’s gestural and figurative impulses that coalesce to form and un-form imagery imbued with bright colors. The artist’s works, with their saturated, textured look seem recognizable and unique at the same time.
Weppler’s talent rests on her innate capacity to tell a story. This storytelling isn’t so much about the individual character as much as it is about the story of interactions as an activity itself with its symbolic attributes and its rich allegorical thickness. In order to achieve her aesthetic vision, the artist has had to engage herself in the creative project of defining a particular visual language involving the body moving in a particular type of space. In this respect her efforts have been admirably successful.
In her statement the Tina Weppler writes: “In my paintings I use various colors for the simple reason that the world is basically a colorful place – even in our darkest hours. Using the whole palette gives me access to almost every inner feeling and allows me to show my deep belief – that colors can in fact broaden our understanding of complex matters if we are open for new impulses and even views contrary to our own. Painting for me is an experimental game. A process through which my curiosity is in focus – thus the artist is merely a bystander waiting patiently for the outcome to be revealed.”