Contact
︎

hello@LenaKeller.com

︎  Instagram






Inquiries
︎

KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin ︎Link
Galerie Bayasli, Paris ︎Link













Ceci n'est pas un paysage
︎

“[...] Landscape thus reveals more than just a relationship between world and image. It also illustrates the relationship between humans and the world, showing that we are digital Ptolemaics. It is a testament to Lena Keller's keen analytical eye that her painting takes on this neglected image- world relationship. Her work reflects the genre and media history of the landscape image, revealing our relationship to landscape and, thus, our relationship to the world.

At the same time, it develops this world relationship in diffrent directions. I want to single out one of them: some color progressions suggest inflammation, for example, in “Forest Slope 2” (2022). These bring to mind the well-known danger of total environmental destruction - total in that human life on earth would no longer be possible. This would, of course, also mean that there no longer are landscapes, only nature. This impression of an impervious, deserted, and perhaps even hostile nature is supported by the abstract character of the images: it is unclear what the images depict, but there's a sense of defamiliarization and detachment. They almost seem surreal and disturbed, without a human trace. The fact that we see them as landscapes is only the result of a perceptual convention, which, however, is also a conventional relation to the world. And this relation to the world will ultimately lead to the destruction of ourselves and of landscapes.

Keller’s landscape paintings thus have a peculiar, dystopian sense of time. They show us nature not as landscape but as post-landscape.”


Dr. Björn Vedder

Excerpt, read full exhibition text here ︎Link






Legal notice
︎

Photography Credits:
Verena Hägler, Thomas Lomberg, Joe Clark, Gerhard Haug

Copyright © 2005 – 2024, Lena Keller + VG Bild-Kunst. All rights reserved. No part of this website (including texts, images or videos) may be reproduced, distributed, published or transmitted in any form and media, without prior written consent.

Responsible for content: Lena Keller
USt-IDNr: DE 293764452












upcoming





May 10, 2024 | Solo show

LSS Gallery, New York ︎Link

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past





Feb 22 – Feb 25, 2024 | Art fair

Art Karlsruhe (DE)
with KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin ︎Link

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Dec 6 – Dec 10, 2023 | Art fair

Untitled Art, Miami Beach (US)
with KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin ︎Link

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Sept 14 – Nov 11, 2023 | Solo show

‘Watching my own rotation’

68projects by KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin (DE) ︎Link

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July 2023 | Group show

‘Les affinités électives’
Galerie Sabine Bayasli, Paris (FR) ︎Link

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June 2023 | Group show

‘Gefilde und Gebilde’
Museum Fürstenfeldbruck (DE) ︎Link

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May 2023 | Art fair

Art Busan (KR)
with KORNFELD GALERIE Berlin ︎Link

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May 2023 | Art fair

Art Karlsruhe (DE)
with KORNFELD GALERIE Berlin ︎Link

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October 2022  | Solo show

‘Passages’
Galerie Bayasli Paris (FR) ︎Link

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May 2022 | Grant

Karl Trautmann Preis
Kester-Haeusler Stiftung ︎Link

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September 2021 | group show

‘cling together swing together’
Galerie Noah, Augsburg (DE) ︎Link

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October 2021 | Art fair

Positions Berlin
with Galerie Heckenhauer, München (DE)︎Link

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April 2021 | group show

‘the call of the wild’
Galerie Bayasli, Paris (FR) ︎Link

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September 2021 | group show

‘Boxenstop 2’
Museum Pinakothek der Moderne, München (DE) ︎Link

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October 2021 | Art fair

Paper Positions Berlin
with Galerie Heckenhauer, München (DE)︎Link

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October 2021  | Solo show

‘Everland’
Galerie Heckenhauer, München (DE)︎Link

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Januar 2020 | group show

‘Debütanten’
Künstlervereinigung Fürstenfeldbruck (DE)  ︎Link

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Legal notice
︎

Photography Credits:
Verena Hägler, Thomas Lomberg, Joe Clark

Copyright © 2005 – 2023, Lena Keller + VG Bild-Kunst. All rights reserved. No part of this website (including texts, images or videos) may be reproduced, distributed, published or transmitted in any form and media, without prior written consent.

Responsible for content: Lena Keller
USt-IDNr: DE 293764452













Untitled Art Fair, Miami (US) 
with Kornfeld Galerie Berlin, Dec  2023 ︎Link
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Art Karlsruhe, Fair
with Kornfeld Galerie Berlin, Feb 2024 ︎Link
(next to works by Fritz Bornstück)

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68projects by KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin (DE)
‘Watching my own rotation’ Solo show until Oct 2023 ︎Link
(photos: Gerhard Haug)
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Museum Fürstenfeldbruck (DE)
‘Gefilde & Gebilde’ Group show, June 2023 ︎Link
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Art Busan Fair, South Korea 
with Kornfeld Galerie Berlin, May 2023 ︎Link
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Art Karlsruhe, Fair 
with Kornfeld Galerie Berlin, May 2023 ︎Link
(next to works by Martin Spengler & Tammam Azzam)
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Galerie Sabine Bayasli, Paris (FR)
‘Passages’ Solo show, October 2022 ︎Link

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Positions Art Fair, Berlin (DE)
with Galerie Heckenhauer, September 2021 ︎Link
(left to right: 1-5 Lara Eckert, 6-8 Sergeii Chaika, 9-12 Lena Keller, Photo: © Joe Clark)

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Galerie Sabine Bayasli, Paris (FR)
‘The call of the wild’ Group show, June 2021 ︎Link

(left to right: 1-5 Lena Keller, Jerome Combe, Paul Iratzoquy, Florian Viel)

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Galerie Heckenhauer, München (DE)
‘Everland’ Solo show, November 2020 ︎Link

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Pinakothek der Moderne, München (DE)
‘Boxenstop 2’ Group show, September 2020 ︎Link

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Künstlervereinigung Fürstenfeldbruck (DE)
‘TAPED’ Group show January 2020

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Paper Positions Art Fair, Berlin (DE)
with Galerie Heckenhauer, September 2020 ︎Link
(works pictured here: Mauren Brodbeck, Lena Keller)

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Exhibition text from “Watching My Own Rotation”, Solo show at 68projects by KORNFELD Galerie Berlin




Ceci n'est pas un paysage

In landscapes, we are Ptolemaics. We find ourselves in a world that revolves only around us. It does not even cross our minds that we are on a rotating ball of dung hurtling through space; everything is a spectacle just for us, our feeling, our contemplation.1  Even the sun rises and sets for us. After all, that's how we talk: sunrise and sunset. And yet, we only observe our own motion, our spinning on Earth. That's why Lena Keller called her painting of the blue hour, which opens the exhibition, “Watching my own rotation” (2023).

Keller's distinctive painting style includes blurred contours (yet the mountain line is razor-sharp!) and blended colors, which can make viewers feel like they need glasses. Her works are mostly medium-sized and vertical in format, unlike traditional landscape paintings that tend to be horizontal, which suggests that looking at the world as if it were a landscape has long since ceased to be the only filter through which we view nature as a landscape. We now also have digital photo filters. After all, today, we mostly see landscapes through cell phone cameras. Their filters (as insiders will know) sometimes produce very similar effects  those Keller displays here and in other paintings. Note, for example, the morphing of the branches in the back right of “Untitled / Clearance 2” (2022).

Keller chooses her image formats and cropping as if her paintings were pictures on a cell phone. The only landscape format in the exhibition “The murmur of the Pyrophytes” (2023) is a three-part image, reflecting the panorama mode on the cell phone, which initially also consisted of three images. With digital photography, the two opposing forces that define landscape are becoming more pronounced: distancing and commodification. Through the lens, the world moves a little further away. The filters are even more focused on how the viewers want to see it. At the same time, the filters – applied to the world like make-up – emphasize the difference between landscape and nature. In the latter, humans actively create (the farmer on the field is immersed in nature), whereas they are confronted with the former as passive consumers.2

Landscape thus reveals more than just a relationship between world and image. It also illustrates the relationship between humans and the world, showing that we are digital Ptolemaics. It is a testament to Lena Keller's keen analytical eye that her painting takes on this neglected image- world relationship. Her work reflects the genre and media history of the landscape image, revealing our relationship to landscape and, thus, our relationship to the world.

At the same time, it develops this world relationship in different directions. I want to single out one of them: some color progressions suggest inflammation, for example, in “Forest Slope 2” (2022). These bring to mind the well-known danger of total environmental destruction - total in that human life on earth would no longer be possible. This would, of course, also mean that there no longer are landscapes, only nature. This impression of an impervious, deserted, and perhaps even hostile nature is supported by the abstract character of the images: it is unclear what the images depict, but there's a sense of defamiliarization and detachment. They almost seem surreal and disturbed, without a human trace. The fact that we see them as landscapes is only the result of a perceptual convention, which, however, is also a conventional relation to the world. And this relation to the world will ultimately lead to the destruction of ourselves and of landscapes.

Keller’s landscape paintings thus have a peculiar, dystopian sense of time. They show us nature not as landscape but as post-landscape.


Dr. Björn Vedder







[1] Walter Serner, Letzte Lockerung. Ein Handbrevier für Hochstapler und solche, die es werden wollen, Zürich 2009, S. 13.


[2] Gottfried Boehm, Wie Bilder Sinn Erzeugen. Die Macht des Zeigens, Berlin 2008, S. 72 ff. Zum Filter als Make-Up vgl. Jean Baudrillard, Der symbolische Tausch und der Tod [1976], übersetzt von Gabriele Ricke, Ronald Voullié und Gerd Bergfleth, Berlin 2011, S. 180 ff und Verf., Solidarische Körper. Die Auflösung des Hardbodys in der flüssigen Moderne, Marburg 2022, S. 102 ff.


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Contact
︎

hello@LenaKeller.com
︎  Instagram





Inquiries
︎

KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin ︎Link
Galerie Bayasli, Paris ︎Link





Approach
︎

With reference to the classical genre of landscape painting, I develop my works from manipulated photographic imagery that often revolves around human connection and alienation from natural habitats. In this context, I am interested in questions concerning our perception and how we are affected by the digitally shaped environments surrounding us. In my paintings (oil paint on cotton using a brush), representational depictions combine with allegedly virtual influences, resulting in a pictorial reality of their own.








CV
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Lena Keller is a painter. She lives and works near Munich, Germany



Education


2016 – 2022 Fine Arts (Diploma)
Akademie der Bildenden Künste München


2021 Meisterschülerin, class Prof. Karin Kneffel, Akademie der Bildenden Künste München

2005 Mediadesign (Bachelor)
DHBW Ravensburg and Open University London




Public collections

Sammlung des Deutschen Bundestages, Berlin
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, München



Grants

2022 Kester-Haeusler-Stiftung “Karl Trautmann Preis”
2021 Stipendium Freistaat Bayern “Junge Kunst & neue Wege”



Solo shows

2024, May 10
Long Story Short Gallery, New York

2023
Watching my own rotation,
68projects by KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin

2022
Passages, Galerie Sabine Bayasli, Paris

2020
Everland, Galerie Heckenhauer, München



Group shows / Fairs

2024
Art Karlsruhe with KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin

2023
Untitled Art fair, Miami Beach with KORNFELD GALERIE
Les affinités électives, Galerie Bayasli, Paris
Gefilde & Gebilde, Museum Fürstenfeldbruck
Art Busan, Korea with KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin
Art Karlsruhe with KORNFELD GALERIE, Berlin

2022
small matters, Kunsthaus Marthashofen, Grafrath
Karl Trautmann Preis, Haus 10, Fürstenfeldbruck
Fading Sights, ADBK München

2021
cling together swing together, Galerie Noah Augsburg
Positions, Art fair Berlin with Galerie Heckenhauer
The call of the wild, Galerie Bayasli, Paris
Bei geöffnetem Fenster, ADBK München
In Bewegung, Haus 10, Fürstenfeldbruck
Postponed, Neue Galerie Landshut

2020
Boxenstop2, Museum Pinakothek der Moderne, München
PaperPositions, Art fair, Berlin
auf Sicht, Kunstraum Harbeck, Puchheim
Debütanten, Künstlervereinigung Fürstenfeldbruck
pale blue dot, Weltraum, München
pale blue dot, Schaufenster Münchner Stadtmuseum
off the cuff, Kunst66, München
Winter, Kulturraum Grafrath

2019
Wandlungen, Altes Gefängnis, Kulturverein Freising
Kreiskulturtage, Künstlervereinigung Fürstenfeldbruck
Jahresausstellung Akademie, ADBK München
Open End, Kath. Akademie in Bayern, München

2018
Beste Aussichten, Kloster Schlehdorf Kochelsee
EndeNeu, Optimolwerke München
Jahresausstellung Akademie, ADBK München

2017
WandTafel A57, Kunsthaus Marthashofen, Grafrath
Jahresausstellung Akademie, ADBK München



Bibliography

Karl Trautmann Preis, Kester-Haeusler Stiftung

Everland, Galerie Heckenhauer, ISBN 978-3-9821851-4-9

Boxenstop2, Staatl. Graphische Sammlung München, ISBN 978-3-927803-52-7

Paperpositions Berlin, Positions Berlin GmbH

Open End, Kath. Akademie in Bayern