ELENA GLUTH - ARTIST STATEMENT

born in 1979
lives and works in Berlin
concentrates on drawing


My drawing activity is based on my interest for the language systems: the one of the line, of the body and verbal/written languages. Besides drawing, at different periods of life I occupied myself with dance, music and linguistics. This experience is internalized in my work process by means of combining elements of different languages in a single expressive act of drawing. Visual perception and imagery is united with corporeality, the physical activity of movement as well as with the cognitive linguistic activity.

One of the topics of my linguistic research works was the phenomenon of code-switching - alternation of languages/codes within a single discourse. In a certain way, code-switching and mixing can describe my way of working: every group of drawings is characterised by a different way of mixing the descriptive activity of writing and the physical activity of movement and dance.

Some groups of works are more dominated by the idea of the writing process. These works are driven by the intention of almost literary "describing" things, emotions and phenomena, by means of outlining them, by "writing" them down. The line becomes a gesture, almost a letter or a sign delineating, outlining and representing that very something which is in the focus of the narration.

Other groups of works are more inspired by dance and movement as another way of processing the environment. The musical notions of rhythm and tempo are for me a major impulse to concentrate on various modalities of movement.

Repetitiveness vs. variability build up a framework for my working process. The exploration of different degrees of repetitiveness/ variability reminds of moving between the two poles of self control and exessiveness of the current impulse, leading to the creation of patterns with a different degree of visible repetitiveness.

Contrast, tension and balance are the principles that move me. Impulsiveness / emotionality of the body and the ordered / systemic / analytical thought contrast each other. Their tension provokes the drawing activity, reflected creation of a system and breaking out of it, the drawing process being the means of finding a balance between the two extremes. Finding a balance is something that I associate with physical space, with a body, object, phenomenon or idea searching a position in the environment, trying to localize itself. I perceive my drawing activity as a permanent attempt of localization.

DRAWING SERIES - HORIZON 01

in front of me - a landscape
details fall away
the essence - the horizon

cut the surface by a single line
the drawing done

contemplate
and draw a line again
another one

stare far way
the horizon absorbs the whole of my attention

perceive some fragments underneath
fields?
bushes?
trees?
the pen starts gliding
it's drawing something
going on
it's hurrying
back
to touch the horizontal line again

my eyes are fixed on the horizon, it is magnetic
the rest is ephemeral - objects, structures, spaces - either fog or flashes
however
they do exist
the flighty pen flies over the surface
quickly
it describes, rewrites and outlines
details - documented
reduced
to the reminiscence
the imagery
mirage

sometimes I do not draw this line
I do not have to
it is inside me
desert
sea
horizon

DRAWING SERIES - SCRIPT ROWS / TRANSCRIPTIONS / UTTERANCES

Frankly speaking, I have no patience to write long texts.

Only when I want to "warm up", I cover a pair of sheets with signs from top to bottom. It is seldom that I bring out something like huge blocks of a running text. And if, then rather as a first try, a kind of attunement to now, to my inner disposition and to the mood of my hand.

Not every drawing becomes a "transcription", a "script". This happens when in this very moment there is a burning need in me to say, to tell and to describe something. Then the hand produces signs which remind letters.

Of course, I do not spell out the words. When I feel the urge to communicate something, I become hasty. My thoughts flow like a stream - there is no time to write out the letters. I shorten the letters, the whole words or even phrases, sentences.

Nevertheless, even if the stream takes me along, I separate everything into particles. The interruptions are apparently important to me. I think, I like punctuation. Sometimes I even wonder what I have transcribed: the meanings or the punctuation - the signs of separation / connection between the meanings.

I also have an absolutely different kind of "scripts". I call these drawing series "script rows". Actually, I am interested in exploring extensive landscapes, large spaces where things (i.e. signs) can live with a lot of space around them. But sometimes the theme of the figure, the shape moves me. So much that the signs grow big. They suddenly dominate. The figurative is suddenly there, the sign with its form and own character, it occupies the whole space for itself.

Though I studied linguistics in my distanced past, I have no interest to analyse my visual language from the point of view of linguistics. Rather I wonder about such trivialities like how much of Russian (my mother language) is there in my "transcriptions", and how much of German - my second language.

I have a feeling, I will never find it out. But what I know is that I like edges and angles.

DRAWING SERIES - FLOW

streaming lines

DRAWING SERIES - NeuesMemo

taking notes

2015 I discovered an app for taking notes in my phone.
Since then I have been drawing on the mobile phone screen while I am thinking.

What do these drawings reveal? The matters that I think of? Are these the thoughts that take shape in the drawings? The emotions? Or are these the various ways to sort and arrange thoughts that become visible?

While drawing, I do not think about these questions. I deal with one topic or with many at once, with everyday things or with global matters, think back and forth, or the thoughts flow semi formulated somewhere in the background. I draw, thenI flap the phone, stand up, leave the bus and hurry on.

Reviewing the pictures later, I can no longer remember what subject occupied me during I was working on some particular drawing; neither I can recollect the context of what was happening nor my mood or feelings. In a certain way, these drawings occur to me always new and surprising. In the end, I can only deal with the formal aspects of the signs or enjoy the aesthetic experience.

The memory of what had happened, had been thought and felt however has vanished. I see what all see: a collection of lines, forms and structures. Literally, I overwrote the issues that concerned me with these records. My phone called each note by default "NeuesMemo" and set the date of record in the file name.

Hundreds of digital memories printed on transparencies are piled up on top of each other.
The drawing series "NeuesMemo" is dedicated to overwriting (of the memory).

DRAWING SERIES - ALPHA

This series of works displays net-like structures inspired by piles of tree branches, woven patterns, maps and air views of landscapes.
The focus is on the combination of the technical and organic linear patterns, on contrast, and on the inter-play of the positive and negative spaces.
The relationship between the natural and artificial structures and processes is examined by experimenting with variability and repetitiveness, macro and micro scale, chaos and order, randomness and precise elaboration.

POSITIVE - NEGATIVE
The essential and constitutive element for all works of this series is the relation of the positive and negative spaces. It defines the structure of each drawing as well as the structure of each smaller segment within the drawings.
The priority of the positive or the negative is the principal question that emerges during the composition development. The artist reflects upon it by the means of contrast, i.e. changing the mental state from impulsiveness to self-control which results into the permanent tension between random action and reflected elaboration of the composition.
The positive and negative areas co-define each other, the dominating direction of the influence – from positive to negative or from negative to positive – alters from drawing to drawing as well as within the inner structure of single drawings.

LINE - SPACE
The play with the contrast of the positive and negative is combined with the opposition of the linearity and space. The process of drawing reminds of sculpturing a form: the lines arranged into sequences seem to lose their linear character and become an area. These areas physically shape the positive space and sculpture it to lines. In the reverse composition development, the vast area of the white canvas, the positive, is mentally transformed to an imagined line flowing through the landscape and cutting it into numerous islands which are to be physically shaped by the black materialized lines.

MATERIAL
The material properties of the black permanent marker are reduced to its single and essential characteristic: permanency as a metaphor of steady contrast. The method of contrasting affects each action and process: the positive is contrasted to the negative, chaos to order, randomness to elaboration, repetitiveness to variability, macro scale to micro scale, the line is contrasted to the area.

LINEAR PATTERN
The common feature of the line throughout this series is its fragmentation and resolution into more or less short strokes.
The degree of format-filling varies, though tending to the coverage of the entire canvas. By filling out mostly the whole space, the linear grid facilitates the impression of flatness. However, the variation of the line density and thickness creates a feeling of volume and transforms the flat surface into a spacial pattern.
The changing length and direction of the strokes create various rhythmic and dynamic patterns conveying a subtle feeling of movement.
Both the three-dimensional and dynamic effects are more or less slight, appearing and disappearing depending on the viewing distance and the concentration of the glance. United by the form, length, direction, thickness and extent of density, the lines build up numerous more or less homogeneous bundles and islands, the homogeneity of the sequences being of different nature: from chaotic through strict to lyrical and decorative.

MACRO – MICRO SCALE
In the experiment with the scale, the distance to the canvas is varied; the spot-devoted acts of drawing are followed by the reflected contemplation and landscape development from a distance. This contrasting leads to the exaggeration effects resulting in macro or micro scaled patterns, inviting the viewer to explore his/her own perception by varying the distance to the canvas.

CROSS REFERENCING
Just like lines condense to sequences within one canvas, the drawings complement each other, form more or less coherent groups. Though contrasting, the separate groups of drawings are at the same time extensions of each other and form a coherent system with its elements cross-referencing one another.