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Lee D. Böhm
(1969) |
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Kontakt
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Lee D. Böhm
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Über Lee D. Böhm |
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Dark Fairytales and Midi-Keyboards
There is something eerie in those paintings. It is hiding quietly under children`s beds, it is wafting gloomily over horizons of summer landscapes, it immerses almost unseen in the quiet see. It behaves a bit like Murakami`s Little People- somebody is pulling strings from another world, which, here and there, crawl into our dreams. And that is what Lee D. Böhm`s paintings are about: dreams. And if we are not careful, if we take our eyes off the canvas for just a second, they turn into nightmares. Would you like an analysis? Welcome to the couch.
What Lee D. Böhm stages reminds a lot on a fairytale or on an allegory, which confronts memory and every day life with deep psychic trauma. We should approach these paintings in a dream-analytic way, for they are compositions of fragments of childhood, provincial western-pomeranian home, grünauischen big city neuroses, mythical creatures and a lot of Leipziger Schule. Traditionalisms generate themselves on the first sight: the visions of Mattheuer, Rauch`s flutter, disquietingly areas, and last but not least the intimate compositions of figures of her teacher Ulrich Hachulla at the University of Grafic and Printing. But Böhm`s paintings are far from being some of those boring cheap copies, which you can find all over the high walls of the studios of the students at the HGB. No, indeed, something really unique is lying dormant in them. The daughter-mother relationship between Böhm and her daughter is the main subject. The large scale works “Der Ausblick” (160x140), “Der Brief” (120x100) and “Gartenarbeit” (80x 100) give the girl with her homey pre-school innocence a major role. The (associated) mother figure is almost always present, and if not, she is dreaming between MPC and Midi-Keyboard on the microphone of her past as the singer of the electro-band Westwerk, which was, in opposite to painting, not able to secure a living and the offspring. Over and over again those intimate moments are accompanied by the second component in Böhm`s oevre: signs of imminence. Let it be the octopus-tailed diver, who is trying to spoil the flight attempt or the rat swarm that is overrunning a group of tin soldiers in an invasion: If somebody could make this painted threat audible, it would probably sound like the base line in a David Lynch movie, wifting over the canvas to the deep blue of the narcotics. The third component of the paintings is forced into the viewer`s head as subliminally: everlasting bondage is chaining Böhm`s figures to their roles. In Invasion the feet of tin soldiers are chained together with bars and they are condemned to their soldierly downfall, even though, the sunny blond girl could end the invasion in the lower spheres of the earth with one single kick with her foot. Instead, this god-like gesture is kept a suggestion and it is not clear, if it is aiming at the rats or the male defenders.
In other parts tension between the sexes is more distinct. In Spiel a female narcissus is dreaming its self-love into mens heads and confuses them till they fall in doom. Get ready for the evacuation of the soul! Böhm never leaves her actors physically unharmed.
A pale sleeping young boy is lying there in the carbon dioxide of a shallow cellar of the rocket station. The elevator has no exit. Children figures with bronzed skin relate to each other; while the one above the ground without limbs is unable to escape, the other one in the playroom under the earth, although it has got limbs and toy brick and books cannot anticipate what lies beyond the wall of the dungeon. There is sad LPG-architecture under the narrow horizon. It is a comment on Böhm`s childhood in provincial Mecklenburg. As if Grabow had not stayed industrial wasteland, the sky is hanging over the scenery like strong butter. The rockets of the rocket station will never have the force to start their flight to the stars through the thick oil paint smog. They are fake cardboard dummies.
Sky is the limit.
But then there is an end to this desperation. As life neglecting some details appear in Böhm`s work, may it be hidden like the children thief in Der Ausblick or as obvious as the satyr attack in Flussabwärts, the more positive are the fantastically gliding flying objects, the intimate human relationships and the endless sky blue in many of the paintings.
A repeating exchange between high and low. Autobiographic indeed. “Those are relics” the painter says smiling pointing towards the comic figures, which conquer the stage together with the legacy hunters, and which origin in her time as a illustrator. The legacy hunters snare her summer vacation hide away place. The smile disappears. Her grandmother`s house in Stolzenhagen, a 200-Seelendorf, is in danger to vanish from the scenery. “This was one of the first paintings I made. Because it was haunting me, this fear of loss. The curtain falls.” The trick is to keep breathing. The show is not over yet. The recent paintings of the artist from the years 2011 and 2012 more and more show mythical motifs (Halt) and classic surrealism (Vernissage). The psycho-analytic search for the self of the early years transforms onto a big stage, on which centaurs reach out for children of the sky (Freier Fall), madonnas, spiritually touched, have visions under tunics (Das Ei) and angels zoom down from the firmament (Hilfe). Böhm is not only the crafts person in front of the canvas (Balance), who is thinking in traditional artistic manners and is saying: “Every story has been told once already anyway. Important is only the form.” She is somebody who is hiding a bit behind this humbleness, because exciting and, above all, new stories are piling up in her way too small studio- up to a self-build storage place, which looks more like a crowded loft bed. A lot of dream interpretation will still be necessary on the couch underneath it. The next session is booked.
John Sauter
Personal Information and Academic Background
1969 born in Ludwigslust/ Germany
1991 - 1997 Hochschule für Graphik und Buchkunst Leipzig (Academy of visual arts) – studying graphicdesign , class of Illustration of Prof. Rolf Felix Müller, Diploma with distinction
1998 Graduate Stipend from the state of Sachsen
1997 – 2000 Master class student - painting and graphic arts - of Prof. Ulrich Hachulla |
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Ausstellungen |
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Solo Exhibitions
1998 MDR, Leipzig, DE.
1999 Bauhaus, Dessau, DE.
2004 Gallery Blumen, Leipzig, DE.
2008 Stadttheater Gießen, Amnesty International, Gießen, DE.
2009 Uniklinik Leipzig, DE.
2009 «Electric Ladylands», Gallery Franz Epple, Türkheim, DE.
2010 Leutzscher Kunstrasen e.V., Leipzig, DE.
2012 SJU Gallery, Leipzig, DE.
Group Exhibitions
1997 Diploma-Exhibition, Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, DE.
1998 International Exhibition «Pictures for kids», Cranach Stiftung, Wittenberg, DE.
1999 «Graphic», Regierungspräsidium, Leipzig, DE.
2000 Masterclass-Exhibition, Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, DE.
2003 Gallery Büchergilde Gutenberg, Frankfurt a.M., DE.
2004 Project Gallery Bund bildender Künstler, Leipzig, DE.
2007 «In the realm of fantasy», Kulturamt Mindelheim, DE.
2011 «Munich Contempo», Gallery Rothamel
2011 Gallery Franz Epple, Türkheim, DE.
2011 «Painting and Linocuts», Roland Rechtsschutzversicherungen, Köln, DE.
2011 Art Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, DE.
2011 Gallery Rothamel, Erfurt un Frankfurt a. M. , DE.
2012 „Summerbreak“, Gallery Schröter Contemporary, Berlin
Solo Exhibitions
1998 MDR, Leipzig, DE.
1999 Bauhaus, Dessau, DE.
2004 Gallery Blumen, Leipzig, DE.
2008 Stadttheater Gießen, Amnesty International, Gießen, DE.
2009 Uniklinik Leipzig, DE.
2009 «Electric Ladylands», Gallery Franz Epple, Türkheim, DE.
2010 Leutzscher Kunstrasen e.V., Leipzig, DE.
2012 SJU Gallery, Leipzig, DE.
Group Exhibitions
1997 Diploma-Exhibition, Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, DE.
1998 International Exhibition «Pictures for kids», Cranach Stiftung, Wittenberg, DE.
1999 «Graphic», Regierungspräsidium, Leipzig, DE.
2000 Masterclass-Exhibition, Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, DE.
2003 Gallery Büchergilde Gutenberg, Frankfurt a.M., DE.
2004 Project Gallery Bund bildender Künstler, Leipzig, DE.
2007 «In the realm of fantasy», Kulturamt Mindelheim, DE.
2011 «Munich Contempo», Gallery Rothamel
2011 Gallery Franz Epple, Türkheim, DE.
2011 «Painting and Linocuts», Roland Rechtsschutzversicherungen, Köln, DE.
2011 Art Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, DE.
2011 Gallery Rothamel, Erfurt un Frankfurt a. M. , DE.
2012 „Summerbreak“, Gallery Schröter Contemporary, Berlin
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Online-Ausstellung |
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Fluchtversuch II
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Vernissage
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Spiel
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