Opening reception
Thu 13.10.2022, 5pm - 9pm with official introduction at 7pm

How could a “plowed time” ("Umgepflügte Zeit") be imagined? Would that mean tearing past, present and future out of order, dismembering them and throwing them out in pieces to see what would emerge here? Does this mean: timelessness, a stop in the cycle of growth and decay? The works of the painter Elisabeth Störmer-Hemmelgarn lead us to dilapidated buildings, embedded in a wild nature: old church vaults, ruins, abandoned factories, mills, garden sheds, a colony of decomposed beach chairs by the sea. We also see vast poetic landscapes and skies that seem to be made solely for the grandeur of clouds. With a few exceptions, the images are deserted. But not humanless, because in every lonely building, yes, every rusty tool we encounter the legacy of a person. Long past their prime, these leftover architectures and implements still echo the voices that once worked here. What thrives and blossoms in their place is nature. She takes back the place that was taken from her and contrasts her indestructible beauty with the disappearance of culture. 

Light plays a special role in all paintings. "There isn't an interior work by Elisabeth Störmer-Hemmelgarn in which a window, a door, a gate, a passage doesn't open and let in light: radiant, glistening, flooding, friendly light".(1) Whether bursting out behind high cloud mountains, plunging a forest clearing into the soft dawn of day, or throwing fields of sunshine through an attic hatch — the light always comes from beyond the pictorial space, becoming invitation, promise, foreshadowing, and mystery.

• (1) Edda Bosse, Introduction for the exhibition „Bilder von Gedeih und Verderb — 20 Jahre Malerei von Elisabeth Störmer-Hemmelgarn“, Overbeck Foundation 

Elisabeth Störmer-Hemmelgarn (*1948)
1968-1973 Graphic studies at Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Berlin | 1973-1976 Studies at Pädagogische Hochschule Berlin | 1976-1980 Teacher of fine arts and biology in Berlin | Since 1980 freelance painter | 1980-1997 Member of BBK | 1989-2004 Member of the artist group "Maler vor Ort", an association of the seven Berlin painters and sculptors Matthias Koeppel, Ernst Leonhardt, Hans Beyermann, Falko Hamm, Louis, Kornelius Wilkens and Elisabeth Störmer-Hemmelgarn | 1990 Admission to the VBK as the first female member since 1841 | 1994-2001 Member of Künstlersonderbund Deutschland, contemporary realism | 1996-1998 First chairman of Künstlersonderbund | 2018 Establishment of the Elisabeth Störmer-Hemmelgarn Foundation as part of the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation

Reading
Sat 05.11.2022 7pm Lilian Noetzel reads about the standing still of time and what can happen in that non-time. The author developed the text especially for the exhibition.