Karen Holländer's art is humorous, profound, full of everyday scenarios, sometimes cynical and always impressive. Her works are created slowly - unmistakable in their fine illusionistic execution.
The artist wants to tell stories with her works and thus builds up her pictures dramaturgically, as it were. First there is the idea! This is meticulously prepared in a sketch. To do this, she uses photographs taken when she walks through life with an open eye: there are the people waiting in the bus shelter, the bathers in Warnemünde or the different physiognomies of dogs or even houses. Karen Holländer removes the surroundings from these photographs, cuts them out and places them relentlessly crowded on a sheet of paper - the figures, houses or even dogs appear cramped and cramped - a horror vacui is created. This template, composed down to the smallest detail, is then transferred to the canvas and undergoes an even more powerful alienation in the enlargement and the fine brushwork. If no photographic templates are available, the artist also helps herself by making her own scenes. Whole armies of robots made from toilet paper rolls and cardboard currently populate her studio. The basis for further pictures and stories.
A young woman balances daringly on a rope. Her red summer dress absorbs the movement, which is depicted in the person's recurring sequence. She places her foot on the thin rope seven times and tries to keep her balance so as not to fail. It is not a painting on canvas, but an almost life-size fretwork, painted, sculpturally worked out and irritating. The work's statements are profound: Where is this young woman stepping during her balancing act? A question that Karen Holländer consciously asks herself: how does today's youth decide, at what dizzy heights does it move, is it in danger of falling, should it go down this path at all, or in other words, is it even possible to turn back? And when Anna - as the character is called - has left her precarious path, she stands marvelling in the greenery ... and can no longer see the wood for the trees.
But their own person is also used as a model. Who hasn't seen them, these acrobats who are attached between two wooden sticks with a thread and who, when using them, swing their limbs shapelessly in the air and somersault. This puppet bears the face of the artist. It allows itself to be determined by others, so to speak, and is "shot" upwards without any control of its own. Or she can be brought into the right position in a much too small box with the help of puppet strings. A position that will never really be comfortable due to the cramped conditions ...
And the horror vacui images? They show the viewer the stereotypical movements and uniformity of crowds of people and yet, on closer inspection, the differences between the individuals. These are everyday stories that Karen Holländer presents to us. Everyday life, full of profundity and irony.
