Paris Internationale 2023

Veronika Hilger’s (*1981) paintings are located in an intermediate realm: between genres, classifications, and abstraction. They address classical subjects such as interiors, landscapes, still life and portraits. She does not separate these genres clearly from each other but rather fuses them into independent pictorial worlds of biomorphic forms that can be read as parables about the human relationship to nature and about the relationship of humans to each other. Ultimately, the oscillation, the as-well-as, and the in-between are what’s interesting to the artist. She explores fundamental questions about the nature and meaning of painting in its formal, technical and conceptual realization by arranging, shifting, layering and changing the pictorial elements in a spontaneous yet careful painting process.

For some time, the artist has also been concerned with ideas of form, materiality, perspective, color, structure and coating in a sculptural way. Some of her ceramic objects are closely linked to her painting and take up many of its working approaches. The sensibility and care in the handling of color, brush stroke and surface are transferred into a three-dimensional space. Other sculptures, which are more representational, focus more on form than color and have a strong symbolic charge.

+++

Veronika Hilger (b. 1981, Prien am Chiemsee, Germany) lives and works in Munich. Hilger graduated in 2014 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and was awarded the Erwin und Gisela Steiner Foundation Prize (2014, DE) and the Stiftung Kunstfonds stipend (2022, DE). Solo exhibitions include: Confab Window, Hatch Paris (2023), VARIOUS OTHERS, with Zsófia Keresztes, in collaboration with Gianni Manhattan, Sperling, Munich (2021); breeding shapes, Kunstpavillon München, Munich (2020); ICH WEISS NICHT, SOLL ICH RAUSGEHEN, Sperling, Munich (2019); Nacht, Sperling, Munich (2017); Seltene Erden, Kunstverein Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen (2016); nobody to greet, Bayerische Ingenieurekammer-Bau, Munich (2015); Erdbewegungen HILGER, Sperling, Munich (2015); some came running, mit Keiyona C. Stumpf, Galerie Claudia Weil, Friedberg (2015); omg – it’s a landscape, Die Färberei, Munich (2014). Recent group exhibitions include: Infinite Looping in Harmony, HATCH, Paris (2023); Three of a Kind: Milla Aska, Veronika Hilger, Paula Zarina-Zemane, cur. by Jurriaan Benschop, Kogo Gallery, Tartu, (2022); WERK.STOFF Preis für Malerei, HDKV, Heidelberg (2021); 50 Jahre Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld (2018); 50 Jahre Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld (2018); STARTUPART II, München Re (in cooperation with the Städische Galerie im Lenbachhaus), Munich (2017); another gesture, A.I.R. Gallery, New York (2017). Her work is also included in several public collections, Lenbachhaus (DE), Jupiter Art Land (UK), Bundeskunstsammlung, (DE), Kunsthalle Bielefeld (DE), Munich Re Collection (DE), Stadt München (DE).