Maria Kleinschmidt

“My works are drawings or collages or a combination of both. All of them are on paper or cardboard. I like working with rough, found materials, they have a liberating effect on me. I have an extensive collection of old coloured paper which I use more or less like paint: I place patches of paper, draw or paint over it, glue more paper of a different colour on top again and so forth. This technique allows unplanned shaping, meticulous modulation, and endless rearrangement all at the same time.

Drawing to me is not so much about the result on paper as it is about the process of close observation. While examining somebody or something, the object often becomes strange and somehow new to me. I like that feeling of entering the unknown, and the attentiveness and concentration that comes with it.

I have a certain fascination with faces as well as with the dressed figure and the interaction of clothes and body: shapes, transparency, silhouette, colours. I prefer working with life models rather than photographs which again has to do with the experience of close observation, maybe also with that special silent atmosphere when working with somebody real in front of me.”

Maria Kleinschmidt is a Berlin-based visual artist, graphic designer, illustrator, and lecturer. She holds a BA in art history and philosophy from Berlin’s Humboldt-Universität as well as a diploma and an MA in communication design from Fachhochschule Potsdam (FHP). Beside her work as a visual artist and illustrator, she has been teaching fashion drawing at Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK), experimental art basics at Hochschule Anhalt, Dessau (Bauhaus), and drawing and colour experimentation classes at FHP.

2016
(May 18 – June 24)
Group show “Figur”, rk galerie ratskeller, Berlin, Germany

2013 / 2014
(Nov 21 – Jan 28)
Exhibition of fashion illustrations at Kunstbibliothek (Art Library), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany

2013
(Oct 7 – Nov 29)
Group show “Samstagsstricher”, Kulturbundgalerie Treptow, Berlin, Germany