In her paintings she performs a kind of artistic “securing of traces”. She brings the old to new life and presents us the beauty of degeneration by showing just how much life and aesthetic allure can still be found dosing within those elements that have apparently become useless – if only we would take a good look and discover how fascinating apparent “ugliness” can be… Hers is not a script of beautifying processes, but rather processes of change that stay close to their object. And Strathoff does not mean to sanitise, but rather to conserve and to preserve the original condition whilst at the same time translating it into the language of today.

To convey this Strathoff has found her own characteristic medium: corrugated cardboard. For her this apparently useless everyday material reflects a feeling of change and movement. It metaphorically expresses a break with harmony, a sudden rip in steady, one-directional thinking. Through ripping, cutting, crushing and prising the card open she interrupts the even wave forms, breaks through the static line formations and steers the dynamic in quite a different direction: against the current!

(Excerpts from a talk by Anna-Lena Schneider, Cultural Studies Graduate, 06.07.2008, Burg Ziesar, for the Opening Exhibition of “Ziegel_Rot”.)

A trip to China in 2007 drew the artist to monotype. Traces of Chinese scroll paintings can also be seen in her work.

The thick composition of materials in the collages gives way now to a need for light and transparent expression. Composition takes place within a new framework with the aim is to scale it back to the essence. New expression comes from relinquishing what can be done away with.

Pieces of card and fabric take on a new role: painted with ink characters they form a unique print in the printing block. The structures of the imprint are daintily thin on the Chinese rice paper. The white surfaces suddenly hold an entirely new weight. What remains after this brief immersion in a completely different culture? The aesthetic of lightness enriches and refines Strathoff’s own expression. Through these unique prints in response to Chinese character painting she finds her own style.

Once again completely new effects develop as she brings two different techniques together in one artwork: the integration of elements of collage in monotype. Annette Strathoff’s imaginations invite to contemplate transitoriness – they are also meant as a meditation on “what remains”.

“The magic of beauty“, Hermann Hesse once wrote, “lies in its transitoriness”.

(Excerpts from a talk by Almut Andreae, Art Historian, 15.04.2010, MWFK, Potsdam, at the Opening Exhibition of “WAS BLEIBT”.)