Mohairjacke Print

Hella Kalkus studied at the University of the Arts in Bremen and thereafter worked for two decades as a fashion journalist in Milan. Painting on medium to large canvases, Kalkus works are influenced by her emotions and personal views on a fast forward moving, superficial beauty industry. She defines her artistic process as a form of introspective ritual, creating a space inside herself of freedom of expression that manifests in a dual process of intuitive mark making and meditative analysis. This could be described as a deeper dialogue being externalised, revealing inner truths between instinct and rationalism and making them visible. Colour is used instinctively and layer after layer on the canvas appears an image that reflects an inner world, a feeling which is built through the communication of head, heart and hand. A ritual and dialogue of the subconscious with the outside world continues until a truth is being found. (C.M.Erwin) "Flash-lights and shadow of a backstage" Text by art curator Viana Conti (courtesy CE Contemporary Milan, Italy) Who is Hella Kalkus? Perhaps it would be more correct to say: who are the two personalities of Hella Kalkus coexisting in the same person? Fashion Correspondent and Stylist, her sensitivity, the quality of her gaze, the ability to perceive emotionally, conceptually solve and formally communicate, the rituals and contrasts to the glittering world of fashion make her an authentic painter. (...). But what is her idea of beauty? There are the glamorous glossy magazines, posing models, designer labels, functional icons, decided by the market, the current trend, but also by cinema, television, mass media, the entire changing world that evolves around this mass phenomenon: a Beauty with has captivated its audience male and female, young and old until the next season, to slip, after so much hype, so many glowing testimonies, in silence, quickly giving way to the next trend, sometimes towards a nostalgic vintage throwback. For Hella Kalkus there is also another kind of beauty, timeless: a beauty that responds, on the double side of aesthetic style and the path to knowledge, self betterment, through identity, light and dark, of the other, like games of mirrors, of reflections and self recognition. How would it be possible-says Hella Kalkus-to continue to desire what we already have? For me painting is not a way to find answers, but a way to continue asking questions.