Sibylle Springer

04.11.2023 –
10.02.2024

Mein Mann malt auch

In her new works, Sibylle Springer focuses on the work of the painters Barbara and Maragretha Dietzsch. The sisters lived in Nuremberg in the 18th century and were internationally successful painters throughout their lives. They became famous above all for their detailed still lifes. Like many other female artists, they have been forgotten by art history.  Barbara Dietzsch painted thistle plants true to the original and added numerous insects, which were also painted aston- ishingly true to the original. Sibylle Springer reinterprets this work and places it in the context of a feminist critique. A stri- king number of the paintings by the two sisters show thistles.

In Sibylle Springer‘s interpretations of these pictures, the thorns and the edges of the leaves sparkle like sharp kni- ves or sickles. Springer has painted these pictures in lay- ers. In this way, the effect of the sharp edges is intensified. If we remain within this feminist discourse on the histo- ry of painting, a scene by the Renaissance painter Arte- misia Gentileschi comes to mind: The flashing blade with which Judith cuts the throat of the sleeping Holofernes.

There are probably no portraits of the sisters themselves. Sibylle Springer has painted two dark portraits of women, which are intended to serve as a blank space. The portraits are painted in such a way that they repeatedly elude the eye. They are present and not present at the same moment.