At Art Cologne 2022, we show a focused presentation of Renée Levi (*1960 in Istanbul, lives and works in Basel). We present paintings with the sizes between 340 x 340 cm, and 230 x 190 cm. Whilst the "smaller works" are hung on the wall, the larger paintings lean against the wall. This allows us to stack paintings, which alternate on a daily base. In this way, over the course of the art fair, we present a total of nine paintings. This allows us to reveal an insight into the artist’s overall practice. Moreover, the works on view are a combination of new and recent paintings, which were previously shown in museum exhibitions.
For over thirty years Renée Levi has been questioning the medium of painting. She investigates colour, the application of paint, its body, and its space on various image carriers as well as in installations. While doing so, she always proceeds intuitively in her practice.
With tremendous physical effort, Levi paints or sprays large-format canvases with bold colours. There are no limits to her love of experimentation. Levi goes so far as to include the use of cleaning rags as painting utensils. Despite these grand gestures, she is perpetually immersed in a more subdued dialogue with the overall context of the exhibition space. Thus, Levi constantly reinvents her paintings. She temporarily sets aside works that have been started, or even exhibited, and develops them further, adapting to various spaces.
Renée Levi's paintings always go beyond their imagined space. They appear boundless as they extend past the image carrier. As a viewer, one believes to be in the pictorial space, spatial image, or even existing in a new area of thought altogether.
