(Night raid on Toyama, Japan 1/2 VIII ’45 (II), 2019
charcoal, pastel on museum board, 56.3 x 56.3 inch)
From March 7 – 10 Raquel Maulwurf’s solo presentation is presented at Art on Paper. Raquel Maulwurf developed a special concept as a continuance of her recent solo exhibition ‘The Carbon War Room’ at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, showing large scale charcoal drawings in contrast to ‘smartphone’ size drawings. The exhibit was moved to Art on Paper after VOLTA NY was cancelled due to the appropriation of its Pier 90 by the Armory Show.
Raquel Maulwurf (Madrid 1975) lives and works in Amsterdam. While Maulwurf’s previous work dealt with the remnants and destruction of war, her new work captures our world’s chaos when hit by the forces of nature and ecological disasters; exploring the notion of whether nature is striking back at us for polluting its oceans, poisoning its air, burning down forests and turning the ground we walk on into radioactive wasteland. Making something evocative and beautiful from horrific events, these images, both destructive and monumental, are manipulated in such a way that only the essence of the event remains. The drawings no longer show what we see, but that which we know, making current events tangible, posing the question of why mankind is so eager to destroy. Drawing on museum board allows the artist to brutalize the surface with sharp objects; depicting violence through violence by scratching, the artist is materializing destruction in both subject and process.