Chairwoman by Maria Bussmann

Artwork Description

Original title of the artwork: Chairwoman

Maria Bussmann’s works represent an insistent attempt to fathom the epistemological quality of her medium, drawing. For the artist, drawing is the most direct form of artistic expression, both as a medium of analysis and of communication. Her work traditionally grows out of her relationship to reading and the generative force of philosophy and literature, as well as personal references such as temporary sites of residence. Authors that have inspired her work include philosophers Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein and Apuleius. Her drawings, at times exhibited as scrolls, exist as open-ended commentaries and annotations to philosophical thinking rather than illustrations of readings or experiences. While reading and thinking, the artist transfers visual ideas that develop in her mind into a two-dimensional space making the drawing expansive. In a transformational process, individual pictorial elements appear like encoded emblems, resulting in a rich textual interwoven fabric. The result is a bulk of sketches made into series around her interpretations of philosophical strands or subjects of reference.