On Thursday, Martina Schröder, chairwoman of the art circle Spektrum 88, Sophia Nefe one of the artists of the Spektrum, Piet Dijkstra, chairman of the Bornse Synagogue Foundation and Arjan Reinderink head of the work group of the foundation as well as Gerrit Hermeling from the partner committee Borne met for the first planning discussion in the synagogue in Borne. Already very concretely they talked about two exhibitions in the synagogue Borne in the first half of 2023, one of the exhibitions will be organized by Sophia Nefe. Currently, the works of Sophia Nefe can be seen in the Kunstmeisterhaus in the exhibition “Parallelwelten”.
At the age of 23, she is currently studying for a master’s degree at the Kunstakademie Münster. In her artistic career, it is striking that her works repeatedly pick up on certain pictorial elements. Corridors, open gates and windows invite the viewer’s gaze into the picture. They serve as an insight into a world that in many cases cannot be explained rationally. There is a closeness to reality, yet small alienations occur in the works that create tension in the image because they do not correspond to the experiences one is used to in everyday life. A professor once named her works as “obviously kitschy, a flirtatious beauty of natural things.” He attributes this to the fact that her works are supra-temporal.
First and foremost, her paintings serve as an escape from reality, where one is constantly confronted with oneself and one’s actions. A preference for the fantastic and the dreamy is visualized, but without losing the claim to truth.
All in all, her works are collages that combine several found objects from the Internet, her environment and her imagination. The selected motifs thus come from different realities and are then brought together in the work so that they make a claim to truth. This is reinforced by the realistic rendering of the motifs and by the light that illuminates the scenes and brings them into reality. Here contradictions appear in the purely rational logic, which create tension and arouse interest. Opposites are united, the improbable is made probable, and dream-like states are visualized. Nefe’s works are characterized by elaborating structures and surface textures and staging light and shadow in a provocative play. Through her own visual language, she draws the viewer’s gaze into the work, holding it and allowing him to forget reality for a moment.
“Parallel Worlds” serves as an invitation to dive into Nefe’s other, new art world. This world can be visited as part of the summer gallery of Kunstkreis Spektrum88 Rheine e.V. on June 18/25 (2-6 p.m.) and June 19/26 (11 a.m. to 6 p.m.).