Art Explained: Art Wiki – FAQs About Abstract Art
written by the art historian Dr. Ingrid Gardill
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Moderne Kunst vs. Klassische Moderne
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Abstract painting in Katja Gramann’s work
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Abstrakte Malerei der Klassischen Moderne & Vorläufer
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Abstraktion oder Abstrakte Kunst nach 1945: Informelle Kunst
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Geschichte der Collagentechnik
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Beobachtungen zu den Wachs-Collagen von Katja Gramann
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Feingliedrige Gesten und tanzende Farben – die freie Malerei der Künstlerin Katja Gramann
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Glanzstücke – eine neue Reihe im künstlerischen Werk von Katja Gramann
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Katja Gramann im Interview mit der Kunsthistorikerin Dr. Ines Kehl
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Bringing acrylic painting to shine – the new series of “neon pictures”
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Abstract painting with pigments and material in mixed media (mixed media)
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About the series of works featuring the green hopefuls
1. Modern Art vs. Classical Modernism
Is there modern art? | What does modern art mean? | Modern Art vs. Contemporary Art | What is contemporary art?
Today, people often use the term “modern art” colloquially to refer to the art of the present day. Here, “modern” is understood to mean current, as opposed to old, antiquated, or belonging to the past. Strictly speaking, however, in the context of the visual arts, “modernism” refers to Classical Modernism with the emergence of avant-garde styles. This corresponds roughly to the artistic and cultural era spanning from around 1910 to approximately 1930. In America, the term “Modernism” also applies to the 1940s through the 1960s and is often characterized by artists who emigrated from Europe.
Strictly speaking, in cultural-historical discourse, the art of today is referred to as “contemporary.” “Contemporary Art,” the English term for contemporary art, is rather cumbersome; “Modern Art” is easier to pronounce. Perhaps this is why “Modern Art,” as so-called modern art, was also adopted into German in common parlance. Both terms—“zeitgenössisch” and “modern”—are still frequently used in parallel and as synonyms today; however, from a cultural-historical perspective, the correct term for describing art of the present is “zeitgenössische Kunst” or “contemporary art.” Among the world’s best-known representatives of contemporary art are, among others, the German artist Gerhard Richter and the American artist Jeff Koons.
2. Abstract painting in Katja Gramann’s work
abstract | informal & non-representational | free
Which styles of classical-modern art can be found in Katja Gramann’s work? Katja Gramann is a contemporary artist and prefers to work abstractly , which means that she does not show any immediately recognizable objects, people, animals or plants in her art. There are many echoes of this, preferably in the depiction of blossoms or flowers, but they are always abstracted to such an extent that they can only be guessed at. This enables unrestricted, free viewing of your work. Basically, Katja Gramann’s art can be assigned to non-representational or abstract painting, within which she has developed her own formats such as free painting in acrylic, color field and gestural painting, which she implements in her mixed technique, and a special collage technique . But what exactly is abstract painting and where can its roots be found? What traces does Katja Gramann follow in her work and what is she inspired by? Let’s get to the bottom of the origins of this style:
3. Abstract painting of classical modernism & precursors
Romance | Impressionism | Neo-Impressionism | Expressionism | Constructivism | geometric abstraction | expressive abstraction
At the beginning of the 20th century, artistic movements increasingly moved away from recognizable depictions of objects, space, or nature. The beginnings of abstraction can be found primarily in the art of Classical Modernism (ca. 1910–1933), though it had its precursors in earlier artistic periods: Interestingly, some painters began early on to focus less on the concrete depiction of, for example, nature, and instead sought to express moods. A leading figure and pioneer in this movement is the English painter William Turner, who was active as early as the Romantic period (late 18th to mid-19th century). Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism followed this path of capturing fleeting moments in France beginning in the mid-19th century. They often depict striking atmospheric lighting, as we know it from the paintings of Claude Monet.
Once Classical Modernism had taken hold, it was the Expressionists in particular who took this approach even further. They experimented with transcending color. In other words, they expressed their feelings directly through color, while the recognizability of the subject matter receded into the background. Franz Marc, August Macke, Paul Klee, and Gabriele Münter are some of the leading figures from southern Germany. Wassily Kandinsky, who also belongs to this group, certainly took abstraction the farthest, particularly in his late work. Yet, much like Paul Klee, he often “hid” motifs in his paintings that were still recognizable to the trained eye.
On a second level, painters of Classical Modernism developed their art in the direction of abstraction , namely by breaking up the form. Although this can also be found in Expressionism, it was the main concern of the Cubist artists, which developed in France around 1900. Among them are above all Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque . Here is perhaps the most radical departure from all rules and conventional principles of representation: the dissolution of perspective (here, however, it was Paul Cézanne who turned away from it), the three-dimensional illusion, the coherence of the image order and proportion, in favor of a breakdown of values and Balance of power. The objects often appear to be tilting or “unfolded”, which is why one speaks of two- dimensional space. The aesthetic reinterpretation of the form gave the artists enormous freedom on which later generations could build. Picasso himself quite deliberately never ventured into the terrain of complete non-representationalism.
Based on the latest findings, it was a woman who painted the first really abstract picture : the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint . Inspired by the spiritualist currents of her time, she painted non-representational as early as 1910 in order to capture the mentality in her pictures. While her work remained hidden until recently, it was the Russian painter Kazimir Malevich , the main exponent of Constructivism , who publicly exhibited the famous “Black Square” in 1915, which soon became an icon of modernism. The breakthrough for abstract painting with its renouncement of image concepts was created and from here on – on this basis and following on from Classical Modernism – various styles within abstraction began to develop. In retrospect, they were roughly classified into a geometric abstraction (Kasimir Malewitsch, Piet Mondrian) and an expressive abstraction (Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky).
4. Abstraction or abstract art after 1945: informal art
4.1 Development in Europe: Realism | Informel | geometric abstraction | lyrical abstraction | gestural painting | ZEN 49 | Group ZERO
After the Second World War, the aim was to find an artistic detachment from the realism-related aesthetics of National Socialism in a destroyed Europe. Abstract painting offered itself as politically “neutral”, liberal and progressive . A socially critical message was not aimed for, the turning away from representational painting in relation to the past was statement enough. With informal art , or Informel for short, an artistic attitude was defined that included diverse directions of ” formlessness “. The term was coined in Paris in the 1950s, originally as a counterpoint to geometric abstraction . The great role models were the paintings of Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, but one also saw oneself in a long tradition with the atmospheric, abstract water lily pictures by Claude Monet. Therefore the artists of the Informel are also called artists of the lyrical abstraction , in contrast to those of the geometrical abstraction. The pioneers of Informel include Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Fritz Winter, Willi Baumeister, Rupprecht Geiger, Hans Hartung, Emil Schumacher, KRH Sonderborg, Karl Otto Götz and many more. Often they worked with spontaneous gestures and intuitively placed signs, which they either left as they were or integrated into a larger composition. This is why the term gestural painting is often used. Some representatives in southern Germany joined the ZEN 49 group, while the ZERO group was formed in Düsseldorf, looking for an aesthetically unencumbered new beginning in the “zero hour”.
4.2 Development of abstract art in the USAabstract expressionism | Action Painting | Drip Paintings | Color field painting | Black Paintings | Expressive abstraction | New York School
In the USA, a comparable trend within abstract painting, abstract expressionism, developed as early as the 1940s. Intuition and feeling, which were given direct expression, were predominant here, before any structure and any perfectionism. The artists who immigrated from Europe and defamed as “degenerate” in Germany shaped this art concept in America, especially Josef Albers and Hans Hofmann , but also the French Yves Tanguy and the Dutch abstract Piet Mondrian .
Soon, different variations emerged: Action Painting—a fast, spontaneous style of painting—attracted attention primarily through Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings, in which he dripped or flung paint onto a large canvas lying on the floor. At the same time, artists such as Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Barnett Newman were practicing their Color Field painting. Mark Rothko’s works, created beginning in 1950, are considered the first examples of Color Field painting. Large-scale and multi-layered in composition, the monochromatic, modulated color fields blend into one another. The artist intended for his paintings to be viewed intensely, even meditatively, focusing on the pure effect of the colors. Painters such as Cy Twombly, along with Helen Frankenthaler and Willem de Kooning, are also among the leading figures of American Abstract Expressionism. Yet his delicate technique—which applies calligraphic gestures, like casual doodles, to monumental canvases—has, in turn, given rise to a character all its own. The reorientation of American art in the late 1940s was also evident in the Black Paintings, a series of monochromatic works in black and shades of black, which marked a partial break from the European tradition and its influence. For artists such as Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhard, and Frank Stella, the color black embodied the essence of expressive abstraction. It is interesting to note the mention of the color black as an ideal in Theodor W. Adorno’s posthumously published Aesthetic Theory: “The ideal of black is, in substance, one of the deepest impulses of abstraction” (Adorno 1974, p. 65).
American female painters of this period often developed their own unique forms of artistic expression and, in some cases, had to assert themselves as the wives of famous fellow painters. They were part of the first generation of Abstract Expressionist painters, particularly those of the New York School, and had a major influence on the art of the time. Of particular note here is Lee Krasner, who painted or created collages spontaneously and intuitively, often directly on walls. She was married to the Action Painter Jackson Pollock. Helen Frankenthaler’s large-scale color-field paintings were also highly influential. Elaine de Kooning, married to Willem de Kooning, turned to figurative art after 1950 within her loose, free-flowing style of color painting. Joan Mitchell was already part of the second generation of the New York School and impresses with her vibrant, rhythmic gestures in powerful colors, which she applied spontaneously across one or more large-format canvases, particularly in her late work.
5. History of the collage technique
The historical avant-garde movements used the artistic technique of collage (from the French *coller*, meaning “to glue”) as a method of alienation. Its origins lie in French Cubism and Dadaism around 1910–1920, when artists tore up newspaper clippings, photographs, and colored paper, pieced them together, and glued them onto a background. This was particularly well-suited to Cubism’s deliberate breaking down of form and its non-perspectival montage. The Dadaists, too, sought to disrupt conventional interpretations of meaning and used the technique primarily as a form of protest. Hannah Höch was the first to discover photomontage. Foreign materials, small everyday objects, and other elements were also glued onto the surface. For the first time, artists experimented with foreign materials in their images, using this innovative method to create rhythms, intriguing surfaces, or compositions centered on specific themes. At the same time, they utilized the structures that arose—whether intentionally or by chance—through décollage, the process of tearing, peeling, or scraping away materials. Revealing what lay beneath was employed as a stylistic device and was particularly common in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in the creation of poster walls composed of many layers. Representatives of Surrealism in the 1930s, Pop Art in the 1960s and 1970s, Fluxus in the 1970s, and Copy Art and Mail Art from the 1970s through the 1990s each employed the collage technique in their own specific ways.
Although Katja Gramann’s collages have their origins in the traditions listed above, they go beyond the classical technique and simultaneously incorporate the idea of décollage. The artist discovered an entirely new form of collage by, on the one hand, gluing down very fine, hand-dyed paper and literally painting with it. In addition, by subsequently peeling away layers and applying foreign materials and pigments, she creates compositions with striking spatial tension. These appear densely layered or as light, floating formations that gain even more softness through a subsequent wax coating. In Katja Gramann’s works, the collage is often more sensed than seen, which is what makes them so special. From very small to large-scale, often unusual formats, the artist masters this technique with virtuosity.
6. Observations on Katja Gramann’s wax collages
by Dr. Barbara Rollmann-Borretty
The black holds everything together. It surrounds the blue in rough, angular bars. The blue that hovers in uneven fields between the stripes, and that is not just ONE blue. From the dark shimmer of the lapis lazuli to the transparent turquoise of the cleanest sea, every field has a different tone. And where they overlap, another nuance appears. The colored areas are not set according to any rule and could easily shift in their looseness. If it weren’t for the invincible black. And if it weren’t for the dense stock, which is broken white like a paste made of marzipan and offers a solid hold. Everything in this picture is arranged according to the law of dramaturgy. A game of aesthetics and expression about the optimal balance of power, which still works out of the lightness of chance. The use of pure color qualities directly supports the development of the sensual world of emotions. The complete absence of the representational inspires an elementary and high-contrast visual language – that was already to be learned from the great masters of Art Informel .
No picture is like the other. But our imagination can link each with both the smallest and the largest world. It doesn’t matter in which format a work is created. The associations oscillate between micro-structures made of crystals and real existing objects to fictional skyscapes. The collective consciousness is stimulated to remember. The most expressive images are well classified using the archaic concept of style . With them, the topic of stone and crystal is omnipresent. A dominant element are the large areas of angular blocks of color that stand in a vertical position like a rock massif in a primeval landscape. Similar formations can be observed in modern stage sets if they were conceived for dramas from ancient times.
Katja Gramann composes her wax collages using a very elaborate technique . The many work steps begin with the construction of the fund on the picture carrier. When coloring the collage paper, usually Chinese paper, the dissolved color pigments are applied to the stacked paper, whereby they seep down to the lowest layers – this results in different saturations of the color shade by itself. After drying, the artist tears pieces out of the arches by hand for the image design. A process in which she lets herself be guided by the random pattern of the color applied. This creates the irregular fields that are so important for the character of the collage.
After arranging and fixing, the papers are gently coated several times with melted wax. It takes a lot of sensitivity and patience to achieve the transparent and yet hermetic coating that is so typical of the wax technique. The result is an abstract pictorial space with a certain depth that is built up layer by layer. Aware of this fact, the artist occasionally still carries out final interventions. So she makes traces in the final wax by scratching a rudimentary drawing. The columns are then filled with charcoal and thus emphasized.
Katja Gramann has only been working in this technology for a few years and has brought with her an amazing feeling for the matter . In the prehistory she had painted a lot in watercolors. Parallels can be seen: for example, the structure in transparent layers of paint and also the stylistic means of unevenly overlapping edges, which in the case of watercolors originate from the brush application, in the case of collages from tearing. Above all, both techniques require work to be carried out in minutes, in which the artist must follow her intuition decisively and precisely. The wax with its changing aggregate states is more than a malleable substance. Its cultural significance and symbolic power always play a role in artistic work. Katja Gramann has found a convincing visual language for herself.
© 2017 Dr. Barbara Rollmann-Borretty
7. Delicate gestures and dancing colors – the free painting of the artist Katja Gramann
by Dr. Ingrid Gardill
The abstract, large-format works from the new series of works by the painter Katja Gramann leave a strong impression on the viewer. Why is that? In my opinion, this is because the artist not only succeeds in making her strong colors, mostly created in acrylic, literally shine , but also in giving her compositions an extraordinary lightness at the same time. She achieves this through the open, filigree and yet decisive setting of the forms .
Those forms emerge from the multiple layers of the light background or shine through in places. This creates special color moods and a fine transparency . On this delicate fabric, Katja Gramann uses lively, powerful brushwork to set bright accents , mostly in a targeted combination with black. The tension that emerges from this conceals the strong energy that the viewer perceives consciously or unconsciously and that helps to clarify the initial question.
But let’s take a closer look at the diversity of these lively structures . It gives the impression that they are dancing. Everything is in motion and at the same time connected to one another, is wild and yet clear. Appearances of floral motifs (enchanted, second spring, time travel) can finally merge completely abstract into pure color tones. The artist occasionally inserts lively lines that, comparable to bar lines, add rhythm to the works . They give the shapes and also the eye of the beholder support. At the same time, they appear almost like lines of life. But Katja Gramann also breaks away from this from time to time and simply lets the color structure work by giving them a great depth through accentuations (soul view), the view of a background (easy courage), or by opening up a room (eye-catcher).
Why, ultimately, do Katja Gramann’s translucent backgrounds, with their delicate gestures, strike such a deep chord with the viewer? Much like in her wax works, the slightly hazy, otherworldly translucency opens up a space for fantasies and desires. We know this special space or state from our own experience: when we glide from the world of dreams into waking consciousness—and vice versa. This moment can be found in nearly all of the artist’s works. Katja Gramann captures it with the apt term “dreamcatcher.”
Native American dreamcatchers are light, net-like objects woven with feathers, colorful strings, beads, and all manner of ornaments. Hung above the bed, they are said to allow only good dreams to slip through, while the supposedly bad ones are held back to dissolve in the morning light. One of the artist’s works is titled *Dreamcatcher*. It features flowing lines and fields of color on a light background, which in turn is interwoven with light and subtle shades of color. The painter gives this “fabric” a deliberately diffuse appearance, thereby reminding us of that special state between the world of dreams and waking consciousness.
“Dream catcher”, dimensions: 100x200x4cm, 2016
This principle is fully applied in “Zündung”, Katja Gramann’s most recent work. Here the permeable ground is defining. The painter only occasionally inserts traces of delicate black lines in neon orange and pink into the upper area of the picture and lets them dance like sparks of fire.
Katja Gramann’s exuberant joy of discovery and her great pleasure in free painting have also recently unfolded in other works in which she brings her color accents almost full-format. With pigments and a mixed technique of Rus, sand, ash, paper, charcoal and other materials that create delicate structures on the surface of the picture, she creates light (archaic) or strongly colored (opinion, rendezvous) formations that challenge themselves into the picture push. The courage to use expanding, almost monochrome colors with a sensitive background at the same time is what characterizes these strong images.
The principle of the dream catcher as an aesthetic statement by the artist also applies to this series of works: Katja Gramann’s free, abstract, ultimately informal painting leads to works that speak to many things. But just as when waking up from a dream, the contents can never be grasped specifically and completely. In this way, longings, ideas or even unconscious slumber can flow in. This offers every viewer the opportunity to have an open and inspiring dialogue with the artist’s fascinating works.
© 2017 Dr. Ingrid Gardill
8. Highlights – a new series in Katja Gramann’s artistic work
by Dr. Ingrid Gardill
Further Developing the Collage Technique
During the pandemic, Katja Gramann has pulled off a major success. To counteract the general gloom—and for her own sake as well—she began to make her already vibrant color palette shine even brighter. This has resulted in entirely new works, developed from her own technique, which has since become one of her hallmarks—collage.
She was inspired by the brightly colored, paper-thin sheets of paper in her studio, which she dyes herself, tears into pieces, and uses alongside other materials for her collages. Eventually, she began experimenting further with the papers and colors and ultimately developed a new technique.
A Professional Approach to Color Interplay
Now she uses the sheets of paper as a whole and dips them in various colors. The harmony of the color combination is essential here. This process results in both moments where colors blend into one another and unique textures in the areas where the paper is only lightly saturated. The act of dipping and withdrawing the sheet of paper must be performed at exactly the right moment and with the utmost precision to achieve the desired effect. Katja Gramann herself refers to this as “guided chance.” Here, the artist benefits from her years of experience in the professional use of color. The process can succeed on the first try, or the result must be discarded. There is no middle ground. This is what makes that single, focused moment so crucial.
Art-historical tradition
The American artists of the Action Painting movement experienced something similar in the 1950s and 1960s. The act of pouring, dripping, dabbing, or painting was carried out with the utmost concentration, yet at the same time spontaneously and intuitively, with lively, fluid gestures. European artists adopted a comparable approach in the mid-1950s with Informal Painting—also known as Informel—when the aim was to break free from the principles of classical composition and help color achieve its own autonomy. Here, too, the act of painting focused on the trace of movement in a single moment.
The deliberate dipping and dyeing of paper, followed by its application as a collage onto a wooden form in a conscious act—as Katja Gramann does—points in a direction of its own that goes beyond painting. Yet the creative process behind the new series of works and their appearance are rooted in the tradition of Informel art.
Coherence of the Structures
When gluing to the wooden support, it is also important to make the right decision. The artist must keep a close eye on the dynamic composition and determine which elements of form and color on the sheet belong at which point in the image. Subsequent corrections are not possible. However, the composition does not end at the edges of the picture; rather, it is glued beyond them all the way to the edges of the back. This creates new arcs of tension.
The continuation of the image around the picture frames—which are usually 6 cm thick—makes the small-format collages appear particularly like three-dimensional wall objects or forms, drawing the eye to the surrounding color gradients.
Emergence of light
But the real stroke of genius is that Katja Gramann then coats the collage forms with casting resin. The resulting smooth, slightly reflective surface further enhances both the vibrancy of the colors and the depth of the compositions. The sheen makes the colors truly radiant. In contrast to her wax-coated, delicate-looking collages, the artist achieves a contrasting, yet equally magnificent effect here – that of an intense glow emanating from within.
© 2021 Dr. Ingrid Gardill
9. Katja Gramann in an interview with the art historian Dr. Ines Kehl
Dr. Ines Kehl: Dear Katja Gramann, how did it all start, how did you get into painting?
Katja Gramann: My parents recognized early on that I like to paint a lot and when I was 12 they gave me a watercolor box with seven colors and the corresponding course at the adult education center. And then I went there every week – as the only child among so many seniors (laughs). But that didn’t really matter at the time – nobody was surprised. And I learned to mix colors with my little box – I still benefit from that today. It was only when I moved to Berlin for work after completing my studies that I got to know large-format acrylic painting in the painting school of the artist couple Jürgen Sage and Astrid Albers. Before that, I only did watercolors.
Dr. Ines Kehl: How formative was your time in Berlin?
Katja Gramann: Berlin appeals to every artist’s soul, because the city is so colorful and chaotic, a lot is on the move, the energy in the air is almost tangible and at the same time everything is quite relaxed – it’s a terrific mix that simply invites you to be creative to work. In Berlin I realized that art is and will be an essential part of my life. The lessons in Astrid Albers and Jürgen Sage’s painting school contributed a lot to this. There I was accompanied wonderfully artistically. I learned an enormous amount from dealing with both of them on a weekly basis. Even after I had been in Munich for a long time, I was looked after by them via telephone and internet. I had and still have a very high level of trust with both artists. Unfortunately Jürgen Sage passed away and I have sporadic contact with Astrid.
Dr. Ines Kehl: You have been in Munich since 2003. It is not so easy to rent a studio there, where did you paint or where do you paint today?
Katja Gramann: In Munich Pasing I was able to rent an old, rather dilapidated, former and small schnapps distillery across the courtyard – for very little money. It was terribly drafty and cold there, in winter I could only paint with gloves, but it was a room just for me. And precisely because it was so shabby, I was able to pour my colors onto the canvases to my heart’s content without thinking about dirtying too much – perfect for me! We have been living in Graefelfing since 2010 and I can work in my own workshop in the house.
Dr. Ines Kehl: Have you never regretted not having studied art at university?
Katja Gramann: I’ve already thought about it, but at the age of 20 I didn’t have the courage to do so, because life as an artist is usually quite hard – very few can live from art alone and I have alternatives no thought back then. So I decided to study German language and literature and history – it seemed to me to be less unemployed at the time (laughs). And now I am the person I am through everything I’ve experienced and happened to me, and that includes studying at university in a completely different discipline. In this respect, I don’t regret my career.
Dr. Ines Kehl: But autodidacts have a much harder time in art than qualified artists, although they are sometimes the more creative or freer artists.
Katja Gramann: The thing about “having a harder time” is of course correct and I can tell you a thing or two about it, because if something runs through my life, it is being an autodidact. For example, I studied German and history, but then worked in marketing and product management. I was the only humanities scholar in every company I worked for. And as a product manager, I started taking photos and painting in large formats and then started my own business after the birth of my children. Self-taught people usually bring a lot with them, because besides what they are currently doing, they have experienced, done and studied completely different things. And all of this that still resonates in experience flows into the work of an artist somewhere. From there, I have no problem with my autodidact.
Dr. Ines Kehl: And how do you continue your education, do you also do it on your own?
Katja Gramann: A lot comes about through trial and error. And then I keep taking seminars at the independent art academies in Bad Reichenhall and Augsburg in order to develop myself further and to learn new techniques. The exchange with the artist and lecturer Andrea Rozorea in particular helped me a lot artistically. Today we often meet in pairs in Andreas’ studio in Augsburg to paint together. That is really great!
Dr. Ines Kehl: Where do you get your inspiration from? How do you get the ideas for your abstract paintings?
Katja: Artists often perceive their environment to be a little different. For example, I can enjoy it when the rest of the beetroot juice on the already empty salad plate runs into the dark brown balsamic vinaigrette, then I think to myself “What a play of colors, I’ll try that too”, or I blink with my eyes, so that everything around me becomes slightly blurred – then everything becomes just color and shape – and I then try to implement this abstraction in a painterly way.
The interview was conducted in February 2016.
10. Bringing acrylic painting to shine – the new series of “neon pictures”
The title already expresses it – Quiet was yesterday – Full of life – Delighted joy – Life is delicious – Come play with me – I’ll be gone – cheeky, full of vitality, brisk and at the same time playful and light-footed comes the new series of works by Katja Gramann therefore. It is a single rebellion, a “painting against the sadness” as the artist herself says. The works in acrylic with their bright colors that were created during the high phase of Corona in 2020 and 2021 do not leave anyone behind in their sadness.
Katja Gramann remains true to her glazing technique and builds on it. She creates the images in many overlays and brings transparency to the individual layers . She allows drops to form from the watery color substance that make their way across the canvas. Her signature can also be seen in these abstract compositions: the depth effect, the targeted setting of lively color accents, the courage to dare to try something new. She visibly enjoys experimenting with highly pigmented, fluorescent daylight colors, but still requires a certain amount of discipline, because too much would destroy the work and make it appear flat. The secret lies in the sensitive combination of delicacy and color strength . In the process, compositions are created, each with its own character, which Katja Gramann lures out with her usual instinct.
Neon colors were first experimented with in pop art in the 1960s. It signified a new departure that left the previous conventions behind. Everything was allowed now and the artists from the USA and Europe really let off steam. Andy Warhol’s screen prints in particular made use of the glaring glow and set the contrasts hard against one another. In doing so, he also turned away from abstract expressionism and, like Roy Lichtenstein, helped objectivity to a new appreciation.
The abstract color explosions in Katja Gramann’s neon series, on the other hand, allow the colors to flow into one another. This is also shown by her “Brilliants”, a recently created series of works that builds on her collage technique using strong color pigments and partly neon colors and finally seals the image carrier with resin. The consistently large-format acrylic paintings of the latest series, however, remain open-pored and thus go a little further in their life-affirming effect.
© 2021 Dr. Ingrid Gardill
11. Abstract painting with pigments and material in mixed media (mixed media)
These informal images ground and lead to peace! They are authentic and honest and are particularly inspiring because of the material used. The artist Katja Gramann perceives the earthy energy of the mixed media images as a kind of antipole to the digital and artificial that predominantly surrounds us today. This is why she has recently been making increasing use of this technique, which she has been using again and again for many years. She firmly believes that not only she but all people need this type of art.
Mixed media with predominantly natural materials
It is a mixed media technique in which mostly natural materials are used. For example, ash, rock flour, sand, pigments, wax, paper, coffee, charcoal and much more are applied in layers, some of which are poured. The thinly mixed color pigments flow with the materials, form bonds or settle. The result is therefore always surprising after drying, because it can only be planned to a certain extent.
It is important to Katja Gramann that the work is and remains open-pored , because the paint is powdery. This lets the works breathe, makes them permeable, even though many individual layers of color pigment are laid on top of one another. Often the artist then goes over it with a charcoal pencil, or she scratches accentuating gestures into the picture with a spatula or a scoring needle, so that the underlying ash or different colored layers of pigment break up again. This creates a relief-like, sometimes quite rough structure that brings great tension to the picture. As in the tradition of informal painting, the material is also in the foreground here.
The ash used has a different color depending on the type of wood burned. The spectrum ranges from white-gray and brown to very dark gray-black. Once used, the ash shade can never be completely removed from a work, because the ash always slightly stains the other pigment layers and “bleeds”, especially with white tones.
Gramann uses ashes from her friends or family’s stoves, or she picks them up from the grill stoves of the various campsites where she stopped during vacation trips. She is particularly fond of the ashes from the forge of a local blacksmith who makes the heavy metal frames for the mixed media work especially for the artist. When picking up the frames, she became aware of the fine ash and was allowed to take it with her.
Great variety within the series
What is exciting about the series of works is that the works show a completely different effect . There are extremely delicate compositions such as Weissheit, Lichtfeld, Stille Kraft 1 and 2 or Knossos , in which there is a lot of liveliness and whose colors are rather subdued. Powerful designs such as inner growth, flash, elementary, it remains exciting, layered work or metamorphosis , on the other hand, have a dense pigmentation and dominate the format with their sheer unrestrained colors or deep blackness. Sometimes dense and sometimes punctiform, always keeping tension, the painter plays with the various pigments here.
Earthbound and archaic
The wooden picture carriers allow Katja Gramann to scratch and damage the surface. This is important because she expects a lot from the material when she is working process-oriented and with lively energy. The great love for stone and its different flours, for organic, natural materials allows her to create new things again and again with enthusiasm.
The archaic moment , as we know it from the cave paintings, for example, plays a role here. The abstraction, which is implemented in a very comparable way in informal painting, comes to the fore in the works of Katja Gramann. Even in the color nuances, archaic and earthy elements play a major role, as the earthy-looking, so far eight-part series Erdverbunden 1-8 clearly shows.
So there will always be surprises when the artist delves into working with pigments. New and daring things are explored, as in summit climbers or clarification , while earthly connections always bring you back into peace. Depending on the mood and spirit of discovery of the artist, this series of works will continue to have a lot in store that will amaze us.
© Dr. Ingrid Gardill, January 2022
12. On the Series of Works by the Green Party’s Rising Stars
“I want to make the green the hero”
Katja Gramann’s new series, “Bearers of Hope”
Background
Katja Gramann calls her current, extensive series of large-format, abstract mixed-media works “Hoffnungsträger” (Bearers of Hope), a series she has been working on continuously since July/August 2023. The starting point was an intensive exploration of the color green. The initial spark came from her gallery owner in Belgium, who showed her a photo of a weathered quay wall—almost as if painted by nature—that reminded him of the artist’s typical works. For Katja Gramann, this impulse set in motion a thorough exploration, both artistic and theoretical.
She asked herself why there are so few examples of the color green in art history. She found what she was looking for in the works of Cy Twombly and Emil Schumacher, though they often did not use the color on its own. Nor did Claude Monet, whose water lily paintings do contain a lot of green; yet Katja Gramann has realized that we do not really perceive the color there, but rather primarily the blue that is also present in the paintings. – Why is that?
“Outcast” Color
When considering the historical context, one soon realizes that the evaluation of color has evidently shaped our visual habits over several centuries. In Leon Battista Alberti’s 1435 treatise *Della pittura*, green was still counted among the four “true colors,” whereas by the 17th century, the triad of primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—had already largely become established. The fourth primary color, green, was gradually relegated to the status of a secondary or minor color. Swiss art historian Felix Thürlemann examined this phenomenon of increasing ostracism, which ultimately culminated in the “color purism” of modernism. The author traces the origins of this classification back to European medieval painting. According to this view—to put it somewhat simply—green was symbolically associated with the earthly realm, while the primary colors were predominantly reserved for the heavenly spheres. Incidentally, this is still reflected today in the use of liturgical colors for worship services: green denotes all non-feast days of the church year.
The three-color theory remained unchallenged in later years and had developed into a dogma in classical modernism, particularly in the teachings of the Bauhaus and the theory of abstraction. Thürlemann aptly summed up this trend of the years since around 1910 in his treatise: “Green is the color of the lower, natural-real realm; it stands in contradiction to the sublime world of the ‘pure abstract’” (p. 23)! In a similarly disparaging vein, Wassily Kandinsky remarked in 1912 that green had a passive, motionless, indifferent, and boring effect (p. 94 ff.).
Experiment
Katja Gramann wanted to consciously break away from this traditional and highly judgmental approach to color through her abstract art. So she began experimenting on her own and purchased an extensive range of green pigments to test her own color mixtures. The dealer warned her that green paintings wouldn’t sell, but this turned out not to be true. His remark only strengthened Katja Gramann’s resolve to devote herself entirely to this color and immerse herself in it for a time to explore its artistic potential.
A challenging and exciting journey of discovery began, one that kept the painter on the edge of her seat for several months. Her initial attempts were less than satisfactory, as the color appeared dull and garish. She soon realized that the green required a second color to achieve the desired effect. But interestingly, it then immediately receded into the background, much like in Monet’s water lily paintings. The artist could not accept this, as green was meant to remain the primary color. She was determined to “make it the hero.”
Main color
The observation that green in nature is extremely diverse and constantly shifts depending on the light led Katja Gramann to the solution to the problem.
She was able to draw on her extensive experience with material textures to create a certain structure using rock dust, ash, rust, and other substances, onto which she applied the green pigments in several stages and layers. The shimmer of the underlying layers of color, combined with the varied textures, created the iridescence and vibrancy she sought to achieve. She discovered that the warm orange hue of the rust, appearing as tiny, shimmering dots and specks, provided just the right balance to bring the sensitive green color to life.
Accentuation
In addition, she brought out the light areas by using a subdued ash tone instead of harsh white, or, depending on the requirements, she made the background appear darker in places. Finally, the artist enlivened the foreground of the paintings with streaks of wetly applied, light or dark green pigment mixtures. In some compositions, she spontaneously used charcoal to draw airy forms with loose, gestural lines, which form a contrasting additional layer. Some of these forms are reminiscent of the outlines of lanceolate leaves, thereby incorporating the natural aspect into the work.
Message
The long and persistent struggle to artistically capture and adequately represent the “outcast” color green, coupled with the urgent desire to restore its place in art, led Katja Gramann to essentially ally herself with the color and learn to appreciate it. She also considers green essential for our current, restless, and chaotic times, as the color demonstrably has a calming effect on the eyes, mind, and soul. The painter has temporarily chosen green as the color of hope and renewed life as an artistic response to the manifold ecological and social crises, and has therefore titled her new series of works “Beacons of Hope.”
© Dr. Ingrid Gardill, November 2023
Bibliography
Felix Thürlemann, “Green—The Outcast Color: On the Genealogy of Modern Color Purism.” In: Red, Yellow, Blue: The Primary Colors in 20th-Century Art, ed. by Bernhard Bürgi, Stuttgart 1988, pp. 11–27.
Eva Frodl-Kraft, “The Language of Color in Gothic Painting.” In: *Vienna Yearbook for Art History* 30/31 (1977–1978), pp. 89–178.
Renate Kroos, “Color in Liturgy,” in: Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, Vol. VII (1974), pp. 54–121.
Leon Battista Alberti, *Della Pittura – On Painting*, ed. by Sandra Gianfreda and Oskar Bätschmann, Darmstadt 2002.
Wassily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art, first edition Munich 1912, cited from: Bern 1973 (10th ed.)
