Ilona Ottenbreit

ILONA OTTENBREIT - Painting | Performance | Sculpture
The painter Ilona Ottenbreit plays with the dimensions. Her heads dissolve and take up the entire space of the canvas. They expand and reassemble until the essence of the head remains recognizable. The many layers and levels that are visible in her pictures through the constant dissolving and rebuilding of the heads show a constant transformation and change that is also constantly taking place in our lives. In her live performances she uses painting as a unifying artistic instrument to express socially relevant and political themes on stage with her interdisciplinary artist collective.

The current project "BE : CHANGE - Live Paintings by Ilona Ottenbreit"

"My live paintings enable me to let the viewer experience a process of constant change live. It all begins with a projection of a portrait onto the canvas. By scanning the portrait with charcoal lines, I capture what I can. Then I begin to paint the head by rhythmically applying the paint. In the process, the head dissolves, is rebuilt and dissolved again and again until it reaches a state in which it has almost disappeared. All that remains is an image of the core of its being. A musically improvised background creates a cap...

1972 born in Erbach/Odenwald, Germany
1992 high school graduation in Karlsruhe, Germany
1994 training for architectural draftsman in engineering
1998 study of painting in UdK in Berlin in the class of Volker Stelzmann
2001 scholarship for painting of Dorothea Konwiarz Foundation
2002 change to the sculpture class of HarroJacob
2003 scholarship of Erasmus in Milano Accademia di Brera
2004 graduate of the UdK in Berlin
2005 scholarship of painting in Colliuore Côte Vermeille in France
2005 master student of the Udk Berlin
2011 Funding of the performance group „Dimensionen“
2011 project funding for the performance „Dimensionen“
2013 project funding for the performance „Homo Utopiens“
2013 - 2019 Political and voluntary commitment to the successful rescue of the Atelierhaus Mengerzeile
2019 Jury member in the Senate for Culture and Europe for the newly developed program of state guarantees for workspace
2020 Foundation of the performance collective Heads & Voices
2020 project funding for the performance "Transformation durch das Wort - Hommage an Christoph Schlingensief", Kulturfond Berlin
2020 scholarship from the Senat Berlin
2022 project funding for "The Voice of Women" in silent green from Initiativfond Wedding and Demokratie in d...

2024 "The Voice of Women" Im Goethe Institut Paris, French
2024 "CROSSING PATH & EXCHANGE" in Stockholm, Sweden
2024 "BE CHANGE - in constant change" Live painting exhibition in Galerie 15, Berlin Germany
2024 "The Voice of Women mit Suraya Pakzad" Peter Weiss Haus in Rostock, Germany
2024 "BE CHANGE - in constant change" Live painting exhibition in Galerie Kungerkiez, Berlin Treptow, Germany
2024 "The Voice of Women mit Suraya Pakzad" Theater Expedition Metropolis, Berlin, Germany
2023 "The Voice of Women" mit Suraya Pakzad, Kulturbunker Köln-Mülheim e.V., Köln
2022 "The Voice of Women" mit Suraya Pakzad, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany
2022 "The Voice of Women" mit Suraya Pakzad, silent green, Berlin, Germany
2022 "The Voice of Women" mit Suraya Pakzad, STRAZE, Greifswald, Germany
2021 Performing Arts Festival Berlin "The Voice of Women" Live Painting Perfomance with spoken words and sound/ music, Berlin
2021 "The Voice of Women" Live Painting Perfomance with spoken words and sound/ music, Sonntagsclub, Berlin
2021 "Black Lives Matter" Performance Hosek Contemporary, Berlin
2020 "Transformation durch das Wort - Hommage an Christoph Schlingensief", Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin
2020 "Transformation durch das Wort - Hommage an Christoph...