"You can’t create an image of a woman without responding to the aspect of beauty... Even though beauty as such probably is sexless, western culture generally defined beauty as a female ideal... Whereas formerly each sex had its own cult of beauty... But during the period of western art and culture, beauty became focused through the female anatomy." (Marlene Dumas)
Marianna Krueger discusses the image of the woman in a social context and in the media as a reflection on modern society; moments of superficiality and their interpretation in contradiction to the inner moment of the situation. Thus the media image as a fragment of a defined personality evolves into a complex character. The personified object becomes replaced by a real person.
"In my work I am trying to manipulate media imagery by giving its icons a different layer and liberating the person from its programmed context." (Marianna Krüger)
2011, Wild Thing, Josef Filipp Gallery, Leipzig
"Marianna Krueger's work presents a fascinating synthesis of technical competence and artistic sensitivity. As a result the audience can access her work either conceptional or intuitively.
An important aspect of her work is the usage of the paint process equivalent to a historic tracing-system analysing and interpreting contemporary culture (as well as personally relevant issues, memories and metaphors).
Realistic or visual high-resolution surfaces in contrast to abstract elements question an overweight of the visual sense in our culture in relation to the whole range of perceptual experience.
The obvious visible finds itself positioned or rather lost against a mysterious concealment.
Krueger interrogates the purpose or communicative intention of omnipresent, stylised media representation and as an artist explores a societal process in media culture and aesthetics, which causes alterations of perception. Those shifts are characterised by increasingly conditioning patterns of perception, which influence and transform human standards, expectations and demands through media construction and orchestration.
Her paintings inspire by a tension, which is building up between the audience and the way of depiction revealing paradoxes of media immersion. On one hand a seeming closeness to the subject is produced and on the other hand inaccessibility of depiction and simultaneous omnipresence are made a subject of conversation." (Markus Soukup)
2010, FLASH, A.G. Gallery of Contemporary Art, Schwerin
"Flash, a sudden occurence of an intoxication status, showing of intimate body parts, “French Kiss“ in youth language…"
Through the use of acrylic colours Marianna Krüger transforms her motives into fragments of fragility and uncertainty. Thus the transparency and depth of layers of paint examine inner moments of the portraits. Subjects made from flesh and blood become almost ethereally and partly transparent.
In her exhibition ‘Flash’ dark threatening colours consciously form a deep contrast to the technical and pictorial lightness of Krüger’s works. This latent threat is shown in Glow Star by contradicting a contemporary motive with a monochrome and rather classical composition using the language of traditional portraits. The reduction of colour and abstraction of spatial aspects towards a pure emotional space therefore focus on the inner moments of the motives shown (Break).
2007, There is no place like home, Gallery Filipp Rosbach, Leipzig
Intensifying the subject of her previous work, Marianna Krueger’s »There is no place like home« further explores identity through the aspect of Heimat. Its motives are equally associated with specific places and surroundings (Ausflug, Beste Freunde) as well as focused purely on the inner landscape of human mankind (There is no place like home).
The exhibits don’t try to articulate a specific narrative. They rather discuss the ambivalence ofHeimat in terms of self-sufficient social and cultural environments and the current language of multimedia imagery, which creates an illusion of identity (Born on 1st of June 1926). Origin as a personal place dissolves into the aspect of individual lifestyle. Traditional values as individual memories of social matrix (Partisan, Romeo & Julia) are dwarfed to fragments of associated personality.
2006, In your eyes, Gallery Wolfgang Gmyrek, Düsseldorf
We encounter insecurity and longing concerning the ideal of eternal youth and beauty as well as the inability to accept the natural look and therefore evolution of human mankind. The painting OP shows this contradiction through the patient’s smile after surgery: Is it happiness, or relief, being closer to the personal ideal? Or do we face insecurity and fear because of the still uncertainty of the final result? Catwoman pushes the border of the individual ideal to a fictional and incomprehensible dimension. The painting describes Jocelyn Wildenstein’s, known as Wildenstein’s bride in reference to Frankenstein’s bride, painful process to a doubtful final result.
Yet Marianna Krüger’s exhibition stresses the aspect of humanity in terms of evolution in contrast to imperfection of modern society and media imagery as in Russian Song. Natural beauty evolves into hope of emotional complexity and depth. Individualism.