Theresa Lawrenz

In her often site-specific sculptures and installations Theresa Lawrenz very intensively deals with the man-made constructed environment, its structures and contexts.

Especially buildings that are under construction or being demolished, construction sites or road markings, serve as her main inspiration. It is hardly by chance that she often makes her works from materials such as steel and concrete, and it is no coincidence that they are characterized by minimalist, reduced, often geometric forms. But she also combines her works with playful elements, incorporating inaccuracies and coincidences of the material, or searching for points of contact and contrasts between the materials she uses.

This becomes clear in the container works created especially for the exhibition. On four steel stilts, as on a pedestal, thrones a massive container cast in concrete, filled with fragments of rubble that the artist has found and collected on building sites. While the stilt-like tubular steel frames lend the sculpture a certain lightness and fragility and form a counterpart to the massive concrete body, the shards lying on the floor and attached to the steel legs add a playful moment to the work. Contentwise, the rubble container refers to the mountains of rubble, colloquially known as "Monte Scherbelino", which were piled up after the Second World War in many places in Germany, including Mainz, from the rubble of destroyed cities and which still serve as a memorial today.

In other works the artist seeks to make the structures and contexts that manifest themselves in architecture visible and tangible by taking up the architecture of the respective exhibition space, examining its characteristics and specific forms. Thus the concrete staircases placed in several places, whose geometric forms repeat the geometry of the gallery rooms, direct the viewer's gaze to the concrete spatial conditions.

The starting point here is not to think of spaces as something neutral. Rather, the construction of walls, doors and stairs tends to create spaces that dictate certain behaviour - just as the viewer is not a neutral perceiver, but determined by gender or social status.

Movement and standstill
Bodies in space
Weight in the air

"In my sculptures, installation and performances I look for the points of contact between different (construction) materials and let them compete against each other. Where do the limits of a material lie? Who carries whom? Which forces are at work?

I understand my work as an investigation into the relations between the human body and building structures. I examine urban spaces, their furnishings, and demarcations. Which limits and norms have an impact on me? In this context form and material of existing objects and buildings, positive and negative spaces, as well as the entire range of movement between, interest me.

The installations are neither models nor parts of existing architecture. They derive from observations, memories and spatial experiences, run through processes of abstraction and Nind their own form and composition.

Often I work site-speciNically, then I investigate the history and properties of a room and let myself be inspired and guided by it. It is important to me that my installations respond to the space and the movements of people, to change their perception and to intervene in the usual movements and behaviour of the visitors."

Curriculum vitae

*1991 in Mainz
lives and works in Mainz and Frankfurt, DE

www.theresalawrenz.de

Education

2019/20 master student with Prof. Sabine Groß, sculpture class, Kunsthochschule Mainz, DE
August 2019 Bezug Förderatelier im Atelierhaus Waggonfabrik Mainz, DE
Master of Education Bildende Kunst/ev. Theologie an der Kunsthochschule und Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, DE
Erweiterungsprüfung Philosophie/Ethik für das Lehramt an der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, DE
September-Dezember 2016 Praktikum in der Kulturabteilung des Goethe-Instituts in Nowosibirsk, Russland, RU
Bachelor of Education Bildende Kunst/ev. Theologie an der Kunsthochschule und JGU Mainz, DE

Awards, Grants, Projects

2022 residency at Saline d'Arc-et-Senans, Frankreich (from Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral, Bad Ems), FR
2022 Förderpreis der August-Müller-Stiftung, Rheinland-Pfalz, DE
2021 Nachwuchspreis 2021 des Pfalpreises für Bildende Kunst in der Kategorie Plastik, DE
2021 Neustart Kulturförderung: Stiftung Kunstfonds, DE
2021 Mentee, Kunst-Mentoring RLP, Kulturbüro Rheinland-Pfalz, DE
2020 Emy Roeder-Preis: Förderpreis "Junge Rheinland-Pfälzer Künstlerinnen und Künstler", DE
2020 Gutenberg-Stipendium der Landeshauptstadt Mainz, DE
2019/20 BMBF Deutschlandstipendium für das Meisterschülerstudium, DE
2019 Kunst-Förderpreis der Freunde der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz e.V., DE

Collections

Art Collection of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, DE

Museum Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern, DE

Solo and Two-Person Shows

2022	"Pfalzpreis für Bildende Kunst in der Kategorie Plastik 2021", Museum Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern, DE "130km/h", two-person show with Matthias Weinfurter, Kunstverein Bellevue Saal, Wiesbaden, DE "Theresa Lawrenz", Emde Gallery, Mainz, DE
2019	"can you relate to me", Abschlussausstellung im Mainzer Rathaus, DE
2018	"z.d.a.", Skulpturenprojekt aus der Reihe Sockelalarm auf dem Jockel-Fuchs-Platz, Mainz, DE
2017	"tell me who you are", Kunstraum Faulbrunnenstraße, Wiesbaden, DE

Group Shows (selection)

2023	"En Dialogue", Haus Burgund, Mainz, DE "SimultanProjekte", Simultanhalle, Köln, DE "Ensemble", Sommant, FR "Remix 1", Emde Gallery, Mainz, DE "sofort so fort", Neuer Kunstverein Mittelrhein, Neuwied, DE "Hochfrisiert im Schleudersitz", Architekturgalerie Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, DE "Schulterblick mit Nackenhörnchen", GOMO art space, Wien, AT "Vom Spielen. Eine Ausstellung der Stipendiat*innen des Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral, Bad Ems", Ludwigmuseum, Koblenz, DE
2022	"Thirties", Academy of European Law, Trier, DE "Einfädelspur", Zuostand, Berlin, DE "Katze im Sack", basis project space, Frankfurt, DE "stepping stone", gu11, Köln, DE "altitude unknown", basis project space, Frankfurt, DE
2021	"Wir leben auf einem Stern", Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz, DE "Positions Art Fair" (with Emde Gallery), Berlin, DE
2020	"Theresa Lawrenz, Ruben Brückel, Thomas Newman Pound", Emde Gallery, Mainz, DE "kaninchen essen kein fleisch und löwen fressen keinen löwenzahn", Apotheke/Kunsthochschule Mainz, Mainz, DE "flux4art", Landeskunstschau Rheinland-Pfalz, Sayner Hütte, Bendorf, DE "Emy Roeder-Förderpreis 2020", Kunstverein Ludwigshafen am Rhein, DE "neustart", Absolvent*innenausstellung der Kunsthochschule Mainz, DE "Wir leben auf einem Stern. Intro", Gruppenausstellung der Kunsthochschule Mainz, Kunsthalle Mainz, DE "Wache", Haus am Dom, Mainz, DE
2019	"sorry we are open", Atelierhaus Waggonfabrik Mainz, DE "günstig tanken", ehemalige Tankstelle Reifenrauch in Mainz, DE "Junge Kunst im Garten", Sommerfest Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen Rüsselsheim, DE "3x klingeln", Biennale in der Mainzer Neustadt und Bleichenviertel, DE "neustart", Absolvent*innenausstellung der Kunsthochschule Mainz, DE "palata", Ausstellungsreihe von baart space im Labor der Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen Rüsselsheim, DE
2018	"wood, metal, burns, paint, plexiglas, neon, copper", Klassenausstellung im Künstlerverein Walkmühle, Wiesbaden, DE "usus - mit sicherheit viel vergnügen", Rauminstallation und Performance mit Ronia Adl-Tabatabai und Bora Lee, Ausstellungsraum der Kunsthochschule Mainz, DE