Charline von Heyl: An Exhibition Exploring Painting and Drawing at the Secession

This exhibition at the Secession features paintings and drawings from the last year by artist Charline von Heyl. Her work explores the process of painting, focusing on the movement of decisions and gestures rather than the materiality of the brushstroke.

Charline von Heyl's artistic production centers on the painterly process and the fundamental means of painting. Her distinctive visual language, developed through gestures and movements, diverges from abstract expressionism by not formulating actions as signs or elevating the brushstroke itself. Instead, the core subject of her works is the movement of decisions that lead to the creation of an image. Each artwork embodies the diverse and often contradictory steps involved in finding and forming a picture. For her exhibition at the Secession, von Heyl presented paintings and drawings from the preceding year. The drawings, described as black-and-white collages, utilize fragments of found drawings and photographs, which are copied, assembled, and combined with ink drawings to create rhythmic structures. These works, while speaking a more immediate language, connect spontaneity and calculated execution with the same vitality and drama found in her paintings. The paintings themselves derive their tension from the interplay of positive and negative space, light and dark, and numerous layers built from contrasting ground and subject. Viewers navigating the pictorial space as an action space encounter unexpected and challenging ambivalences, where movement-promoting and retarding moments are heightened to paradox. Color planes shift dynamically, animating the pictorial depth before coming to an abrupt halt, testifying to an approach that submits painting to the decisions and events of the act of creation, always ready to introduce contradictions and begin anew.

The page mentions 'tickets' and links to an external ticketing site (shop.eventjet.at/secession), indicating that admission requires a ticket. Specific pricing or booking details beyond this are not provided on the exhibition page itself.