Coping Strategies

Grit Richter | Coping Strategies | Installation View at Galerie Tanja Wagner | 2022

Coping Strategies is Grit Richter’s sixth solo exhibition at Galerie Tanja Wagner. Six large format oil paintings will be on display, each of which offer a new twist to the artist’s ever evolving figurative language.

Two elements meet in Tree of Life – an exchange takes place, connection develops, growth begins. An emanating warmth seems to spread and flow from one into the other. We become witnesses to a moment of transformation, the emergence of something new. From where we observe this process, however, remains elusive. Do we move within the microcosm? Are we observing cells, vessels, roots, energy flows? But then again, don’t the forms resemble breasts, organisms, perhaps even planets? In mystic traditions the tree of life symbolizes the union of opposites. It’s there, where things are set in motion and unexpected links are formed, where knowledge can flourish.

The exhibition’s title, Coping Strategies, refers to the way individuals, groups, or even societies confront threatening situations or phases. While these strategies might lead to the improvement of a situation, sometimes they’re merely distractions from it. Distinctions are thus made between “adaptive” and “maladaptive” Coping Strategies.

Richter’s exploration of behavioral and emotional states continues in works like I’ll Be Your Mirror and The Unfinished Story. Her color spectrum flows between dark violet tones, through searing oranges, until it gets to a cold green. Hands multiply and intertwine themselves, shapes are gathered and trimmed, elements are clustered and merged. The paint is applied either densely or, sometimes, it appears almost translucent. Each painting is dedicated to a process. Each of them contain multiple overlapping perspectives of these processes, as the artist works with modes of representation from the sciences, psychology, alchemy, pop culture, and computer design.

Text: Julia Voss