Relax

Relax is a good example of Conny Maier’s painterly style, and the idealogical content often to be found in her work. Her impressive work cycle, focusing on the existential interrelation between man and nature (personified in a variety of animals)consistently discusses issues of balance of power (equilibrium-instability); often against the backdrop of the most pressing issue of our time: climate change. The idea for her works are gathered while traveling the world. She constantly and spontaneously sketches people and situations on notebooks and pieces of paper, and these snapshots later find their way onto canvas. Maier’s canvases stylistically combine a neo-expressive style with a strong sense of colour and composition. In her large-format paintings (executed in swirling brushstrokes and oil sticks) geometrical forms and colorful surfaces blend together; and her canvases are suffused with documentary (often worrying and cautionary) narratives. Her paintings can thus be regarded as a colourful cosmos shifting between sublime beauty and the simply grotesque.

Firestorm Foundation acquired Relax at the exhibition Die Brücke, which was on display at CFHILL, Stockholm (in collaboration with Ruttkowski;68 and curator Nils Müller) in January and February 2022. The exhibition, which brought together works by Antwan Horfee, Conny Maier and Philip Emde for the first time in Stockholm, was introduced as ‘a universe of vibrant colours and playful energy […] at the intersection of fine art and pop-culture, encompassing sculpture, painting, drawing and video with dynamic compositions and intense presence.’ Maier’s contributions to the exhibition were presented as ‘dynamic and impressive paintings’, with ‘every inch of the canvas covered in her signature vivid colour palette, created using vibrant oil paint and pastel stick in layer upon layer.’

In an interview with Lina Aastrup (curator, Sörmlands Museum, Nyköping, Sweden) ahead of the exhibition, self-taught painter, Maier described her work process:

I am autodidact, so I had to find my way through lots of failures. Sometimes I had friends who helped me here and there with things to avoid or to think about in terms of technique. I always wanted to paint with oil, so I skipped the practice with acrylics and started with that straight away. Of course, there were lots of failures there as well. But it was worth it, I really love the colours which are brighter and more sensitive, moody almost. In order to discover my own path, I had to get out of my comfort zone and that is something which is always scary and exciting at the same time.

Standing in front of works like Relax the viewer is also ‘taken out’ of their ‘comfort zone’. Initially attracted by the artistic merit, and masterly use of pigments, the viewer eventually identifies unsettling details (like the seemingly dead bird that floats upside down surrounded by water lilies in Relax) and sublime existential undercurrents in Maier’s narrative, hinting at impending doom. The title of the work itself also raises questions. Is it the bird that is ‘relaxed’ or does the title rather hint, tongue in cheek, at humanity’s disengaged attitude towards our impact on nature and the climate?

More than just a colouristically balanced neo-expressionist composition, Relax can therefore also be seen as a reminder of humanity’s collective responsibility. The dead bird, depicted in a setting reminiscent of Claude Monet’s legendary paintings from his paradisiacal garden at Giverny, can thus be regarded as a painted prophecy through which Maier, like Cassandra(Cassandra [Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα], in Greek mythology a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not listened to), gives the viewer an opportunity for reflection and repentance - before it’s too late.

Provenance

CFHILL, Stockholm, Die Brücke, 21 January - 11 February 2022.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired from the above).

Copyright Firestorm Foundation