Luka Fineisen: Phase Transitions

Hosfelt Gallery, New York

Using frost, foam, food, glitter, viscous liquids and molten metal, German artist Luka Fineisen presents ambitious sculptural works that explore moments of becoming. This exhibition is the premiere of Fineisen’s work in the United States.

“Phase transitions” is the term used in thermodynamics to describe the shifts between solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter. At a literal level, this is what Fineisen represents in her work – tipping points – the transitional moments when a substance changes from one condition to another. While playing with formal sculptural concerns of modernism and post-minimalism, she explores movement, evanescence and potential.

The work is dichotomous – scientific but sensuous, liquid and solid, monumental and fragile, simultaneously in the process of being created and destroyed. Fineisen is unafraid of creating something delightful, but fascinated by the moment when that allure becomes unnerving. When sensuality becomes dangerous. When attraction turns to repulsion. Fineisen shows us the exact moment when she loses control over her creation and the coinciding love and fear of that instant.

Luka Fineisen was born in Offenburg, Germany and educated at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. She has exhibited in museums throughout Germany. This is her first solo exhibition in the United States.