ART CITIES:Vienna-Stefanie Gutheil

Stefanie Gutheil is a Berlin-based artist. It’s impossible to forget her paintings once you’ve seen them: those mixed creatures, monsters, spooky smiles and mysterious scenes might be something you will be dreaming of tonight. But don’t be scared – Stefanie’s art is not that creepy. If you look closer, you will definitely discover lots of amusement, love for the human being and the animals, free souls and amazing stories from the artist’s surreal wonderland.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Krinzinger Projekte Archive

Stefanie Gutheil in her solo exhibition “Zwei Null Zwei Null”, presents two series of works completed this year. The artist calls a central work of the exhibition “Quarantine”. A fitting title, as it is symptomatic for the past months. Stefanie Gutheil was “forced” by external circumstances to spend more time than usual in the studio. With one of the last planes coming in from New York, she just managed to stock up on enough paint and stretchers before the lockdown started. In her case that meant: Off to the studio! The viewer of the painting “Quarantine” looks at the facade of a house, in which open windows provide a view inside. The people shown are characterized by dominant eye areas. A man in a striped sweater, whose dog comfortingly lays his paw on his shoulder, lets down a basket of Easter eggs – possibly a reference to the beginning of the lockdown in the spring of this year – on a string, which is greedily received by outstretched hands at the lower edge of the painting. A person in the window above is tempted to step out of the semi-darkness to reach for the string. But it is hard to believe that she has the willpower to actually take action. The other inhabitants of the house do not seem to care. Caught in overwhelming boredom, even the simplest activities seem to be exhausting. Small gestures become events. Their reverberation is missing. A woman in a black and red check shirt – reminiscent of Sylvia von Harden, portrayed by Otto Dix – lets down a roll of toilet paper. Is she one of the hamster buyers? The expressive painting style and the strongly rejuvenated perspective increase the feeling of narrowness. It is a two-dimensional way of painting that Gutheil chooses here. Proportions are suspended. It is about the inner life – and to remain in the picture – not about the facade. Paradoxically, the isolation is increased in the painting “Group Picture”. Although protected by a mask, the figures are crowded into a very small space. Their looks seem staggered , frightened, turned inwards. They do not fixating a certain insidendce , but rather a state that seems to put the persons equally into resignation and rigidity: a crowd united in helplessness and yet alone. It is our collective fears, our doubts and the perplexity that the artist makes us encounter in this series. The painter comments with humor that these are sometimes exaggerated.   The situation is different with the second series of works in the exhibition. It is also marked by doubts, but they are of a completely different nature. Here Gutheil attempts to question the stereotypical representation of the sexes. In other words, she tries to give the figure between the sexes an image or, as in “Netflix and Chill”, to attempt an allegory in the form of hybrid beings. A female centaur lifts a blanket under which the fish tail of a mermaid appears. These are chimeras, which are very familiar to us from legends and myths. The pictorial union of man and animal in one figure has been present in different cultures since the Stone Age. On the one hand it is about positive aspects multiplying in the hybrid beings, on the other hand being different is always a burden. In “Nudist Beach” we also discover two characters who deal with animal anatomies. It is not so much about the merging of humans and animals, but rather the figures deal with animal body parts. An unclothed figure kneels in a giant snail shell on a lawn. Here the snail is taken up in its symbolic function as a hermaphrodite, which cannot be categorized as either female or male. In the foreground of the picture there is a woman standing on a towel, dressed only in socks and slippers, and seems to be very surprised about a long, cat-like tail that seems to grow out of her buttocks.

Info: Krinzinger Projekte, Schottenfeldgasse 45, Vienna, Duration: 24/10-23/12/2020, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 15:00-19:00, Sat 11:00-14:00 (the gallery is closed due the COVID-19 safety measures), https://galerie-krinzinger.at/