Karin Kneffel "Face of a Woman, Head of a Child"

KARIN KNEFFEL
Face of a Woman, Head of a Child
01 September - 13 Oktober 2023
‘On the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of DC Open, SCHÖNEWALD, Dusseldorf, presents a new thematic complex in Karin
Kneffel’s oeuvre: the human portrait. This is the fourth solo exhibition in a four-decade-long collaboration between the
gallery and the artist, which began with her animal portraits.
Anyone who only reads the title of Karin Kneffel’s most recent group of paintings will be taken aback when they see the
works themselves. The sober description does indeed capture the content: “Face of a Woman, Head of a Child”. But one
look is enough to realise that Kneffel has taken on one of the oldest themes in the Western canon, placing herself in the
company of the most famous artists. Mary and the Child Jesus have been depicted countless times throughout the history
of art - from Byzantine icons to Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden.
Kneffel places herself in this tradition and at the same time breaks away from it. She has chosen her own approach: On
the one hand, she places mother and child on separate canvases, leaving it to the viewer to establish the relationship
between the two. On the other hand, she draws on historical models, painted wooden sculptures that she has been
documenting photographically for years. There is, for example, a rosy-cheeked Mary with a white face and matching Baby
Jesus, one with suffering features, and yet another that looks so strange that one fears it might have fallen into the wrong
hands during restoration. But Kneffel gives them all a dignity of their own. With brush and paint, the artist captures the
fragile surfaces of the figures as well as the artful depths of the old carving. Mother and child appear in touching closeups,
simple and without religious trappings. No veil, no halo.
The tension between the title and the content of the paintings invites further mental games. What if the fruit still lifes
were also considered part of the series? The apples would become the forbidden fruit on the Tree of Knowledge, the
grapes could refer to the blood of Jesus. The portrait Kneffel painted of her son “Leon” suddenly becomes Joseph, her
daughter-in-law “Joanna” a modern-day Mary, and her grandchild “Nova” Jesus.
Kneffel masterfully combines symbolism and realism, iconography and surface, art and life. Her paintings add a second
ground to every perspective.’ (© Julia Voss)
www.schoenewaldkunsthandel.de