About

• Nora Kapfer’s paintings are characterized by the complex intensity of their craftsmanship.
• Light and heavy materials including bitumen and Japanese paper are layered and cut onto sharp wooden supports. Her paintings are either black or white and feature a minimal repertoire of flat, familiar shapes.
• Each of her materials plays its part in the cutting and layering process. Foreground and background amalgamate into a whole and the layers in between emerge as blurred lines and patterns on the surface.
• Throughout her work, Kapfer hints at a critical examination of painterly gestures in art history.
• She seems to look to the practice of biomorphous abstraction, which emerged around the middle of the 20th century and marked the transition from surrealist painting to abstract expressionism.
• But while the painting of the period is commonly associated with free, masculine subjectivity, Kapfer’s work denies the grand expressive gesture and, instead, concentrates on small and densely packed tableaux.