AUSWAHL VON PRESSESTIMMEN UND ZITATEN VON KUNSTHISTORIKER(INNE)N
SELECTION OF PRESS REVIEW; QUOTATIONS BY SPECIALISTS OF AESTHETICS/ART HISTORY
EXCERPT FROM SPEECHES AND CATALOGUES
“To personify animals helps us to develop skills that we are lacking in real life. Irene Niepel opens us unexpected spheres, alike those in fairy-tales, and she tells not only about animals. Within her series of works about Elizabeth the Virgin Queen the artist outlines a similar method. Certain details represent aspects of this contradictory character. … All the same whether a historical person or an animal, as we are neither a king nor a beast, even if we may sometimes feel that way – Irene Niepel knows that – a projection into a remote being can help us to unburden our own existence.”
John Lochner-Griffith, Kunsthistoriker / specialist in aesthetics and art-history, Berlin Aus: Einführung zur Ausstellung / Excerpt from a speech „Mythische Koordinaten“ in der Villa Donnersmarck, Fürst Donnersmarck-Stiftung, Berlin 2014
Dr. Jürgen Schilling, Kunsthistoriker / specialist in aesthetics and art history Redeauszug zur Ausstellung / Excerpt from a speech on exhibition in Atrium of Investionsbank, Berlin 2005
Dr. Claudio Müller, Kunsthistoriker / specialist in aesthetics and art history Leiter der Kunstbibliothek der Universität der Künste / Director of the Art Library of the Academy of Fine Arts Berlin Catalogue 1995
Series “Queens”
“Seen through the eyes of Irene Niepel, the rigid, stereotyped portraits of Elizabeth I. of England handed down to us on an new dimension … in the hands of Irene Niepel, the traditional, masquelike visage of Elizabeth Tudor is also given lively, individual and indeed, variable qualities.”
Dr. Sabine Appel, D-Ludwigshafen Autorin der 2004 in 2. Aufl. bei Bechtle-Ullstein erschienenen Biografie „Elisabeth I. von England“ Author of the biography „Elisabeth I. Von England” recently published by Bechtle-Ullstein
“Selbst ein Grau wirkt durch den Kontrast zu Ultramarin und durch die Abtönungen mit Blau und Rot geradezu frisch. Irene Niepels Bilder sind sorgfältig durchdachte und konstruierte Kompositionen. Ihre Motive findet sie im Alltäglichen, verliert sich aber dennoch nicht im detailverliebten Naturalismus …”
Erlanger Nachrichten, Tageszeitung, 03.09.1997, D-Erlangen
“Die symbolischen Räume der 1955 in Köln geborenen Malerin sind vor allem Treppenhäuser. Im kräftigen Realismus mit einem Hang zur Abstraktion, der den Symbolgehalt der Arbeiten unterstreicht, gibt sie diese Räume wieder und erweckt zugleich den Eindruck, die Treppen führen ins Unendliche. Hinauf oder hinab? Beides findet sich – und ist gleichermaßen magisch und suggestiv.”
Die Welt, Tageszeitung, 04.05.1998, Deutschland
SELECTED PRESS REVIEW (translated) “The paintings capture mysterious animality in a dangerously beautiful way, often set in plunging surfaces and perspectives, burst open prismatically, structured in a nearly crystalline manner. Painting as a balancing act, for the boundaries of the symbolic have been fathomed and sometimes exhausted by the sham idyll … up to the same creature in a predatory leap …”
Berliner Zeitung, 18.07.1996, D-Berlin
“Even a grey hue seems fresh in contrast to ultramarine and by being toned down with blue and red. Irene Niepel’s paintings are carefully thought out and constructed compositions. She finds her motifs in everyday life without losing herself, however, in detail-immersed naturalism …”
Erlanger Nachrichten, newspaper, 03.09.1997, D-Erlangen
“The symbolic rooms of the painter, who was born in 1955, are mostly stairwells. She reproduces these rooms in a powerful realism with a tendency towards abstraction that accentuates the symbolic content of the works, simultaneously creating the impression that the stairs continue forever. Up or down? Both are possible: and both are equally magic suggestive.”
Die Welt, newspaper, 04.05.1998, Germany