Meet the Artist // Christina Krah

Could you tell me about your background and the project you are proposing for this three-month residency at GlogauAIR?

I am a Spanish-German painter, born in Barcelona but raised in Germany. I studied Fine Arts in Madrid and was lucky enough to have my first solo exhibition in Barcelona when I was in my final year of the Bachelor. Since then, I have dedicated myself fully to painting. My work deals with the contrast between the urban city and delicate nature.

The project I ́m working on here during the residency is related to creating works for my third solo exhibition in Taché Art Gallery in Barcelona, which will be presented as part of an art festival in Barcelona. It ́s about Berlin and the contrast and interaction between the city and nature.

What draws you most to the interaction between nature and the urban landscape? How do you perceive this interaction in Berlin compared to other major cities such as your home city Barcelona?

There is a quote in the book Chemistry of Beauty, by Deborah García Bello that describes pretty well my view on this topic: “The areas where the urban landscape becomes naturalised are frictions. Often these frictions are ruins: man-made constructions, landscapes that belonged to civilization and have been abandoned by it and reconquered by the wild. A beautiful phenomenon of transparency occurs in these places. Something is a ruin only for a certain time, as long as you can glimpse part of what it has been and part of what it will be. Its whole microcosm of traditions and traces assumes its end and is erased, like a tombstone with an eroded inscription that is covered with moss and weeds. Not all ruins are monumental, they are not always abandoned buildings. There are small ruins in every street. These gardens in movement – as the botanist and landscape designer Gilles Clement called them – appear in any crack in the pavement. They are small ruins that adorn the streets. It is paradoxical that wildlife comes alive in places where we have stopped living. We call these frictions ‘third landscapes’. The first landscape is the natural, the second landscape is the urban. The third landscape is the beautiful transparency of one over the other.”

Regarding the comparison between the two cities, Berlin is the chaos where nature grows wild and free and in Barcelona they try to control nature.

Your vibrant color palette and the way you work with space suggests a deeper exploration than that of a simple landscape. What are you seeking to convey through these artistic choices?

I simply observe. Nature is brilliant and incredibly colorful; you just have to notice. I paint what I see, what nature inspires in me, and what I perceive from it. There are so many tones and colors in nature that they seem too fake to be natural. But the reality is that I don’t exaggerate the colors in my paintings; nature’s palette really is that strong and colorful.

But there’s this way how you present your artworks also…they are not just plain canvases.

Yes, I like to present them standing in different lines across the space so you can walk around the paintings and explore them from different angles, like when you walk around the city and its nature. I aim to make an exact representation of the city.

For your project for GlogauAIR, you invite the audience to reflect on how humans interact with the city in contrast to how nature does. What is your perspective on this duality?

The city is a structured and organized place. The buildings, sidewalks, and streets guide us in the direction we should take to reach our destinations. However, when you’re in nature, you’re free to choose which path to take. You have all the freedom to choose which direction to take. There are no rules, no paths, no signs. I also reflect on the transcendence of nature, because it persists during decades and eras and we people are just passing by in this world, so nature is kind of a witness of us and the evolution of the city as well.