Lea Schäfer

"The grid fascinates people and is more present today than ever. Geometric, flat, self-referential, anti-mimetic and rigid, it proclaims the autonomy of art from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. While at the beginning of abstract painting it asserted itself as a motivic pictorial formula, today it is the organizing basis for pixels, which daily, via digital devices, wash completely disembodied, dematerialized images into our everyday lives.

The will to materialize the grid again, to animate it and to expand it with the help of non-representational painting, drives me. The process is like a game played out on a gridded surface: A gestural, free form enters a graphic, ordered surface. Each color form is determined by a different materiality and color quality, enlivening the picture surface with opposites. The surfaces and patterns of lacquer, acrylic, wax or oil paint are applied within the experimental process with brushes, printed, rolled out, sprayed, spatulaed, collaged or even heated and pushed. Much of this is unpredictable. Materials repel or attract each other and mix on the image carrier. The outcome is open and yet each work poses a question at the end, which is expanded upon within the next. My painting lives from the tension of the opposites of grid, organic, line and surface. With each new composition I want to make them speak: of themselves, of their limits and especially of what lies beyond these limits."

Curriculum vitae

*1989 in Dernbach (Westerwald)
lives and works in Mainz und Wiesbaden, DE

https://www.instagram.com/le_schaef

Education

since 2022 Curator, Museum Reinhard Ernst, Wiesbaden, DE
2020-2021 Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin, Kunstsammlungen, Museum Wiesbaden, DE
2018-2020 Wissenschaftliche Volontärin, Kunstsammlungen, Museum Wiesbaden, DE
2014-2017 Master of Arts Kunstgeschichte at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, DE
2015-2016 master student with Prof. Anne Berning, Kunsthochschule Mainz, DE
2013-2015 Master of Education Bildende Kunst/Geschichte an der Kunsthochschule und Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, DE
2009-2012 Bachelor of Education Bildende Kunst/Geschichte an der Kunsthochschule und Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, DE

Awards, Grants and Projects

2018 Wolfgang Blanke-Stiftung Preis (international) für Malerei

Collections

Landeskunstsammlung Rheinland-Pfalz, DE
Kunstsammlung der Landeshauptstadt Rheinland-Pfalz, DE
Sammlung Gerhard Meerwein, DE
Städtische Kunstsammlung Wiesbaden, DE

Solo and Two-Person Shows (selection)

2024	"Lea Schäfer– Floating", Emde Gallery, Mainz, DE
2022	"Lea Schäfer– Colliding", Emde Gallery, Mainz, DE
2019	"palata Nr. 5", Doppelausstellung mit Katrin Nicklas, Ausstellungsreihe von baart space im Labor der Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen, Rüsselsheim, DE
2018	"Bastian Piejko & Lea Schäfer", Doppelausstellung mit Bastian Piejko, Rathausgalerie, Mainz, DE

Group Shows (selection)

2024	"Spring Opening", Atelierhaus Waggonfabrik, Mainz, DE
2023	"REMIX 2 – Sommer-Gruppenausstellung", Emde Gallery, Mainz, DE "Spring Opening", Atelierhaus Waggonfabrik, Mainz, DE
2022	"Late Spring Opening", Atelierhaus Waggonfabrik, Mainz, DE "How to get the paint to tango", Atelier Frankfurt, DE
2021	"Late Spring Opening", Atelierhaus Waggonfabrik, Mainz, DE
2019	"sorry we are open", Atelierhaus Waggonfabrik, Mainz, DE
2018	"Ready to Rumble",  Galerie Kunst2, Heidelberg, DE "Summer Opening", Atelierhaus Waggonfabrik, Mainz, DE "This will be our little secret", Ausstellungsraum BAART, Mainz-Hechtsheim, DE
2017	"ACH! Studierende und Absolventen zeigen Malerei, Skulptur und Objektkunst", Kunstverein DIE TREIDLER, Frankenthal, DE "GOPEA 55 kunstwerken uit Duitsland",  Kunstruimte Villa de Bank, Enschede, NL "Kunst bei Karrié",  Karrié Bau GmbH, Mainz-Hechtsheim, DE
2016	"start 55", Galerie hase 29, Gesellschaft für zeitgenössische Kunst Osnabrück e.V., Osnabrück, DE