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NADJA SCHÖLLHAMMER

TERRA INCOGNITA, Installation view, detail
Galerie Alexandra Saheb, 2010
TERRA INCOGNITA

Nadja Schöllhammer

Opening: Friday, June 4th 2010, 6pm

June 5 - July 17, 2010
Tuesday - Saturday 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm
We are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by the Berlin-based artist Nadja Schöllhammer in Galerie Alexandra Saheb. In the installation "Terra Incognita", which the artist has developed especially for the exhibition, Nadja Schöllhammer explores unknown, uncharted areas - those places beyond our experience that can only be imagined.

Historically, terra incognita refers to regions that were designated as unexplored in old land and sea maps. From afar, the creatures one expected to encounter there were attributed with both marvellous and threatening qualities. At the edges of the maps in the area of terra incognita, cartographers placed fabulous creatures and monsters that probably originated in the same place from which they should be controlled by means of cartographic precision. The uncanny, which cannot be controlled, or only with great effort, is a central motif in Nadja Schöllhammer's work. By means of drawing and its extension in space, the artist sounds out the various dimensions of the human imagination. She is interested in the desires and fears that reappear in different forms in the narratives of human history, and which grow in strength the more they are banished to the margins of consciousness.

Schöllhammer's interest in the uncontrolled is also manifested in her relationship to her primary material: paper. The drawn fragments are reworked using fire and scalpel knife to produce forms in different stages of transformation up to the point at which they begin to disintegrate. These paper webs are then woven into a multi-layered installation that grows out into space, making visible the interplay between fragile beauty and subliminal threat.



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