Bourouina Gallery is thrilled to present the very first solo exhibition by young German artist Marie Rief.
The light goes through the transparent paper - and the drawing on it -, the glass and the tape... When it reaches the photosensitive surface, the trace of the different materials appears to form a dark and uneven space. The process by which the works of Marie Rief is ruled does not appear at first glance. Their composition is mysterious: the photographic process is visible, but only a questioning of that first perception reveals the primary drawing. On a background composed of fuzzy and undefined elements, the magnets and the folds leave white and sharp prints; the light is dimly diffused without modelling any specific object. The drawing and its intensity marks were "flattened" in the laboratory, but the general atmosphere of the work is given by this original drawing: a space is created in which both artificial and natural light are equivalent. This shapeless space intrigues and leads thought to the origins of photography: the transformation of shadow into light.
The apparent contrast between the intense personal work induced by the drawing and the systematic nature of photography lays the foundation for a new interpretation of space and object. Marie Rief does not show her drawings but their photographic transfer, and she creates so a space that neither of these techniques alone might suggest. She reflects on the perception and the difference between drawing and photography, in order to expand the conceptual space of her work. By incorporating the "errors" occurred in darkness, she wants to appropriate an unknown territory, where knowledge disappears faced with the unexpected and the imperfect.
Marie Rief was born in Berlin in 1987; from 2008 to the completion of studies as a master student in 2014, she worked in the class of Pia Fries, briefly with Gregory Cumins. 2015, she received the “Regina Pistor price” and got nominated for the “Protégé Award” of the President of the UDK (Art University, Berlin).
