Moving Matters

With its open call ‘In Bewegung – Moving Matters’, the Kungerkiez Gallery has, for the first time, invited artists to explore the diverse meanings and possible interpretations of this theme. Over 200 female artists submitted their work, and from this impressive array of entries, the volunteer gallery team selected 20 artistic projects, which are now being presented in a diverse group exhibition.

The selected works differ in style, medium and genre, offering a wide range of perspectives on the exhibition’s theme. The artists approach movement, amongst other things, as change, process, transition, rhythm or relationship. In doing so, movement becomes tangible both as a visible physical experience and as an inner, social or temporal process. The exhibition makes it clear that movement does not necessarily imply speed or visible dynamism. It can just as easily lie in stillness, in a moment of transition, in a tension between two poles, or in a subtle change that only becomes apparent at second glance.

After completing her studies at the Academy of Arts in Enschede, Carola Rümper worked as an artist both in Berlin and internationally, supported by numerous project and travel grants. In her series ‘In Passing’, she explores the tension between visibility and dissolution. Against a backdrop of regulation, surveillance and economisation, the question arises of participation, belonging and the presence of the individual within an anonymised urban space.

Danaimoi (Danai Puyguiraud) is a Berlin-based graphic designer and visual artist. Having explored various artistic styles, photography and Art Brut / Raw Art, she specialises in analogue collages and mixed media in her most recent works. Her current works, including ‘Madeline 2’, explore the connection between human figures and text-based worlds.

Franziska Peter grew up in Bernau near Berlin. She studied painting and graphic design at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle and obtained a Master of Education in Fine Art from the Berlin University of the Arts. She has been living and working in Berlin since 2008. Her work ‘Floating’ depicts a body in a moment of transition. The work thus explores the perception of movement and leaves its specific meaning open to the viewer’s interpretation.

Grgur Savić is a visual artist and composer based in Berlin. His work operates at the intersection of graphic notation, sound art and experimental music. His piece ‘Traces de contour II’ interprets graphic notation as an abstract cartography of temporal sound structures. Gestural elements, geometric forms and specially developed symbolic systems combine to form open visual constellations that embody movement, transformation and various possibilities for sonic interpretation.

Irina Neander is a self-taught artist whose work explores the multifaceted theme of humanity. She approaches this theme primarily through sculptures in clay, plaster and bronze, as well as stone sculptures, but also through drawings and painting. The bronze sculpture ‘Zwei Artisten’ depicts two figures standing on wooden pedestals, facing one another, captured in a moment in time.

Jill Sandjaja began organising her own exhibitions in Berlin at an early stage and has developed her own exhibition practice over the years. In her artistic work, she explores the role of art in social and political debates and works primarily with watercolour, fineliner and acrylic. The three-part work ‘Schmelz’, ‘Loslassen’, ‘Verwandlung’ examines movement as a process of transition, transformation and dissolution.

Julia Katolla is a mixed-media artist who grew up in Costa Rica and lives and works in Bonn. Her works create anatomically inspired visual worlds that straddle the line between scientific illustration and psychedelic vision, addressing themes such as motherhood, systemic aggression and the tension between chaos and control. The ‘Mitosis’ series links physical change with a personal new beginning and uses cell division as a metaphor for movement, growth and regeneration.

Liza-Melina Drewello specialised in painting and has been teaching at a secondary school in south-west Berlin since 2018. In her spare time, Liza devotes herself to art, primarily painting. In her figurative acrylic and mixed-media paintings, she combines contrasts such as loud and quiet, colourful and subdued, yesterday and today. Her works ‘ins blaue’ and ‘flieg’ explore these contrasts in different ways.

Maria Korporal studied graphic design and painting at the St. Joost Academy of Fine Arts in Breda. Her artistic practice encompasses video art, interactive projects, installations and drawings. Her video installation ‘WANDEL’ addresses climate change and the social and cultural transformations necessary to avert a global environmental crisis. Animated images suggest alternative forms of energy that gradually develop into living, breathing forms – and the asphalted planet begins to blossom once more.

Margot Point studied fashion design and subsequently worked as a fashion designer and consultant for various television productions, fashion shows and designers. In 2017, she completed her degree in art therapy at the Weißensee Academy of Art and has since been working in forensic psychiatry in Berlin. At the same time, she works as a painter. In her work ‘Freedom’, bodies, colour and form come into motion, dissolving the boundaries between closeness and freedom, holding on and letting go. The painting captures a moment of transition – between stability, departure and transformation.

Maru Turubarova is a Berlin-based contemporary painter working primarily in oil on linen. Her practice explores the relationship between consciousness and the human body through figurative painting. Rather than treating the body as a fixed biological form, she explores it as a space where perception, memory, intimacy and psychological experience become visible. Her work ‘On The Edge of Contact’ navigates the invisible boundaries between people through gestures. In this silent exchange, touch becomes both an invitation and a barrier.

Melanie Ballerstein is a visual artist specialising in painting. Since 2020, she has been working at the BareMünze studio in Brandenburg an der Havel, which she founded and which now also serves as an exhibition and meeting space. Her work ‘zART 3’ is part of an ongoing series that explores internal physical changes and cyclical processes. Organic forms and areas of colour translate physical perceptions into an abstract visual language, revealing the changes taking place beneath the surface.

Michael Koch uses ceramic form as a language to visualise thoughts, observations and perceptions. From his own canon of forms, developed over many years, he intuitively creates metaphorical objects that oscillate between organic memory, beauty and disorientation. His works invite viewers to marvel, to question meanings and to reflect on the complex relationships between form, perception and communication.

Mona Glass is a freelance multidisciplinary artist, set designer and director of the Berlin cultural venue ‘Raum für Raum’. In her artistic practice, she works at the intersection of sound, performance, visual art and installation. She creates spaces of experience that invite viewers to slow down their perception and experience space and togetherness in new ways. Her work ‘Doubt’ keeps things in motion, challenges the status quo, opens up new perspectives and creates space for re-evaluation and change. In this way, what is supposedly unpleasant becomes a productive force – an impulse that encourages us to rethink the familiar and dare to embrace change.

Oscar Rey is a Berlin-based painter whose work combines narrative imagery, personal symbolism and influences from literature and medieval Spanish visual culture. His artistic practice blends bold colours, expressive lines and a distinct narrative sensibility that bridges the past and the present. His works ‘Camera Bordeaux’, ‘A Bottle of Tabasco’ and ‘Self-Construction’ captivate with their bold colour palette and dynamic lines.

Peter Hintz was a master student at the Merz Academy in Stuttgart from 1979 to 1983 and subsequently worked as a creative director. Since 2003, he has been working as a freelance graphic designer and artist in Berlin. His work ‘Kopf Nr. 5’ depicts a human head through lines, fragments and overlays. The viewer’s gaze penetrates the outer structures, revealing the human being in all their vulnerability. The fractured, fragile form alludes to the constant flux of the transience of human existence.

Sarah Hillebrecht trained in wood sculpture and studied Integrated Design. She subsequently held various teaching posts and, since 2016, has been course leader for wood sculpture at the Werkschule Oldenburg and a lecturer in artistic strategies at the Gerhard Marcks Museum in Bremen. Her work ‘im flug’ consists of two wooden sculptures. They visualise a dreamlike flight, entirely natural and without aids.

Stephan Lempert initially studied computer science and subsequently painting at the Berlin University of the Arts in Georg Baselitz’s class. The motifs in his artistic work are generally based on his own photographs of his surroundings, which he interprets, breaks down, examines for patterns, paints over, combines and abstracts in an intuitive painting process. This practice can be seen, for example, in his works “Zweige”, “Autobahn V” and “Brücke III”.

Torsten Holzapfel has been working at the Thikwa Workshop for Art and Theatre since 1998. In recent years, he has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions and won competitions. His work ‘Ich fahre zurück ins Hotel’ draws the viewer into the picture through its perspective, taking them on a journey through the Berlin Underground.

Wilhelm Meister studied under Prof. Jorinde Voigt at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. His works, made from fibreglass-polyester resin laminate, are reminiscent of curtains and church windows, thus straddling the boundary between art and architecture. Curved lines, overlays and colour fields create a network of relationships that can be interpreted as a map, a landscape or a cross-section. Inspired by the visual language and colour spectrum of Orthodox icon painting, a topology of life emerges that dissolves familiar spatial hierarchies of inside and outside, proximity and distance, and the familiar and the foreign, opening up new perspectives on relationship and order.