‘Sehnsucht’ and ‘Artistic Ancestors’
Images and text by Martina Minette Dreier
Ohne Titel, 2017, aquarell/paper by Martina Minette Dreier
Sehnsucht
In her latest body of work, Martina Minette Dreier is painting a series of small, intensiv watercolours of enticing androgynous persons. The close ups concentrate on the subject’s intensive gaze, inviting the beholder to question their own longings. Martina Minette explains, ‘these aquarelles are all done from various photos out of magazines and catalogues I’ve collected for years. I’m searching for a feeling of “Sehnsucht”, I want them all to be androgynous, enticing beauties. The paintings are close ups, thus detaching the subjects from any surroundings, asking the viewer to surrender to their intensive gaze, inviting them to question their own longings.’
Do I look weak? 2017, aquarell/paper by Martina Minette Dreier
Artistic Ancestors
The Artistic Ancestors archive project by Martina Minette Dreier is a series of artworks which stem from the need of female rolemodels in a male dominated (art-)world. There have been numerous female artists in history; knowing the importance of visibility, Martina Minette Dreier is researching female artists in history and contemporary art world, building an archive by drawing her “Artistic Ancestors”. She is aiming to shine a light on as many of them as possible. This part of the series (21 works) features female artist in art history, drawn on found wood, thus limited in number.
Anna Dorothea Therbusch (1721 – 1782) [below] was a Berlin Rococo painter in the Kingdom of Prussia. About 200 of her works survive, and she painted at least eighty-five verified portraits.
Anna Dorothea Therbusch, 2016, by Martina Minette Dreier. Ballpoint pen, scratching/wood, 40×24 cm