Jutta Haeckel: Skin in the Game

Düsseldorf-based Jutta Haeckel paints on jute - the strong, coarse, natural fiber that burlap is made of - and utilizes a series of unorthodox techniques to undermine and expand traditional notions of painting. Most notably, she applies pigments to the "backside" of the painting, then pushes it through small gaps she's created in the fabric - extruding the paint onto the "front" and subverting the two-dimensional space of traditional painting. These are paintings unlike anything anyone has ever made.

Her newest work aggressively emphasizes the concept of the canvas as a permeable membrane, or skin. Viscous material is forced back and forth across a porous barrier. The woven substrate is so powerfully abraded that at moments it seems about to unravel. Some of these paintings appear to have too little canvas to support the weight of the paint they support. Haeckel's process is risky. Every move she makes in the studio has the potential of either dynamic creation or complete destruction. That precariousness is what drives her art.

Haeckel studied with Karin Kneffel and Katharina Grosse and credits their vastly different approaches to painting with her own fascination with the medium's possibilities.

"I don't believe that everything is already accomplished, I think evolution is always possible. It starts with just a little variation and suddenly it could become something new or unique. This is why I always force myself to search for the boundaries of painting and the boundaries of the materials I am working with."

Join us for the artist's opening reception on Saturday, February 1, from 3:00 to 5:00 PM, featuring a walkthrough of the exhibition with Jutta Haeckel and curator Susanne Wedewer-Pampus at 4:00 PM.

Then, join us at the gallery on Thursday, February 6 from 5:00 to 7:00 PM for a conversation between Jutta Haeckel and artist Andrea Higgins.