interfaces of inner states

belinda grace gardner
2020

transcending the boundaries of time and place: annette meincke-nagy's portraits of the soul

attached with simple pins, portraits spanning various eras and cultures are assembled on the wall of annette meincke-nagy's hamburg studio. among these are images of the madonna and famous works of art such as the bust of nofretete, leonardo da vinci's lady with an ermine, or jan vermeer's girl with a pearl earring. yet they also include a magazine image of an unknown girl from pakistan, whose gaze is both alert and introverted. the collection of many different faces serves meincke-nagy as a congenial source of inspiration for her sculptures, which she has been producing since the late 1990s: head sculptures, busts, standing or sitting figures, as well as swimmers. arising from and oriented to the artist's own identity, most of these, but not all, are female. the emphasis of the sculptures always lies on the face, which simultaneously conveys a touching vulnerability and an air of self-contained resistance. headgear, such as scarves, caps, bonnets, or hoods underscore the focus on the facial features of the figures. whether their eyes are open or closed, their gaze appears to be directed inwards. without depicting a particular person or art-historical source, they resemble each other in their appearance and aura. meincke-nagy's sculptures are recognizable and abstract in equal measure. the artist is not concerned with representing individuals, but rather with giving shape to the essence of being human: her sculptures are portraits of the soul that articulate themselves through the interface of the facial expression.

eluding precise specifications, the figures radiate concentration, tranquility, and grace. resting completely within themselves, they create the impression of being immersed in a parallel, cerebral reality: “the face appears both as an enigma and as a risk. as if it were in a pact with the eternal and the sacred. […] on the one hand, embodying a presence, and, on the other, its palpable incognito. a possession, but one with the quality of untouchability. as if one were visible from all sides, but only behind closed doors.”(1) the delicate tension of meincke-nagy's figures, which evoke the notion that one might be observing them in an unconscious, private moment, when they are lost in thought and following their own inner pathways, arises from the paradox between their extreme fragility and strength, radical openness and withdrawnness. the viewer has the impression of having been temporarily drawn into the dream of another person, only to be thrown back at him- or herself a moment later. the rapport that is established through their external form between the figures and the viewers opens up a vast and fluid emotional space. the figures' intrinsic mystery is also inherent to the viewers and co-created by these in the course of the work's reception.

the roots of the artist, who studied in hamburg in the classes of almut heise and friedrich einhoff, lie in the realm of painting. from the very beginning, however, she was less interested in the narrative framing of the figure than in its liberation from temporal, spatial, and thematic determinations. in a certain sense, her sculptures, which are conceived as collective, supra-personal portraits, are a consistent continuation of this approach of extracting the figure from narrative contexts and placing it into the physical space as an autonomous object. technically, her sculptures are a conflation of three-dimensional works and paintings. they are produced in multiple stages over a period of several weeks, beginning with a wire structure onto which strips of paper are attached. on this basis, meincke-nagy develops her figures from multiple layers of a paper-paste and quartz sand mixture, in the final step applying pigments and oil paint to the surface of the sculptures. the lengthy creation procedure is inscribed in the sculptures: on the one hand, just like stefan balkenhol's wooden everyman and everywoman figures, they transcend the boundaries of time insofar as they are not restricted to a certain era or societal framework. this is also reflected by their intertemporal generic clothing in restrained, powdery or softly luminous colors and their minimalist hairstyles, which in their simplification could equally allude to the middle ages or the renaissance as to our present time. on the other hand, resulting from long, concentrated work processes, the artist's sculptures are themselves like reservoirs of time in which the meditative silence of their creation is imbued.

as dirk luckow stated on the occasion of an exhibition dedicated to abstract portraits, “every portrait seeks to capture the human being in his or her openness and ambiguity.”(2) this also applies to meincke-nagy who has set out to visualize the fundamental conditions and states of humanity as such. her aesthetic explorations revolve around the question of our physical presence in reality, i.e., in which form we manifest ourselves here in the world as bodies and in our bodies. in the artist's view, we exist at an equal distance from the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of our bodies, which unfolds behind the surface of our skin: a “universe within, in which there is just as much to discover as in astral space,”(3) whose infinite expanses surround us. however, her expedition into the cosmos of the body is not aimed at revealing the biochemical processes active in it that ensure our existence; it is rather directed at plumbing the ethereal, invisible, intangible sphere of the soul and investigating how its impulses are mirrored in the expression of the face and physical posture. annette meincke-nagy continues to pursue the subtle physiognomic manifestations of our inner worlds. in her portraits, she brings to light their hidden energies, giving shape to these on the threshold between the revelation and preservation of their mysteries.

belinda grace gardner

(1) gisela von wysocki: fremde bühnen. mitteilungen über das menschliche gesicht, hamburg, 1995, p. 14. (2) dirk luckow, mensch und bildnis, eine differenz. introduction in: porträt ohne antlitz. abstrakte strategien in der bildniskunst, exhib. cat. (kunsthalle zu kiel: 2004), ed. by d. luckow and petra gordüren, kiel, 2004, p. 6. (3) annette meincke-nagy in a conversation with the author in her hamburg studio, october 5, 2020.