Exhibition view - Sandstone Museum Havixbeck, 2019 Photograph

Kirsten Mühlbach (born 1968 in Augsburg), lives, works, studied and grew up in Münster. Since 1993 she has undertaken many study trips mostly on the African continent: in Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia - documented in sketchbooks, through canvas works and various object works. "I want to communicate with people, to perceive them in their surroundings, in their lives, in order to connect across different borders. The exchange and the observation initiate something new and find their own expression in my artwork" My inspiration comes from everything that surrounds me in life. I am fascinated by the play of light and shadow in nature and try to incorporate this game into my work. In my pictorial representations, sand figures and ornamental structures applied in relief dominate, which are modelled piece by piece onto the ground with a sharp spatula. The world my sandfigures move, is often painterly predetermined and influences the later settlement. After the sand mass has dried, these figures, some of which have been applied in several layers, are painted with a thin brush. The result are archetypal creatures, reminiscent of goblins with gecko hands or leaf tips. Provided with feelers instead of hair and with eye sockets that reflect the environment. These fantasy creatures explore space: they jump, dance, run, float, are always in motion, always in search of development, creating a colourful world between ornamental tendrils and ecstatic figure columns, elegant lines and hypertropic jungle, chaos and order, seriousness and play.