VAN HORN is delighted to present Vanessa Conte in her second solo-exhibition at the gallery in which she shows her new works on canvas for the first time. The paintings are accompanied by a selection of watercolors by the german Informel-artist WOLS (1913-1951).

Conte employs a variety of mark-making techniques in these new works derived from the spontaneous methods used by surrealists and artists working during what is now called ‘art informel’. WOLS was one of the first artists to use these techniques with his contemporaries, developing a body of work that depicted an inner verses outer vision.

In a series of intimate oil works on canvas, Conte continues to explore the connection between an infinite interior cosmos and the nature of the ever changing and regenerative exterior world. Biological imagery of human and animal orifices and body parts as well as fantasy creatures are organically interlaced with landscape, cellular forms and stellar bodies. Conte’s dynamic surfaces articulate a language of ebbing and flowing energy between interior and exterior worlds.

Vanessa Conte *1977 Tarrytown, NY. Lives and works in Dusseldorf since 2004. She studied at New York University and received her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work was included most recently in Der Pinselhieb der Natur oder die Betrogene Flaeche, KIT and in Regarding Dusseldorf II, 701 e.V.

WOLS (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) *1913 Berlin +1951 Paris, was a german painter and photographer. Noted for his watercolors and etchings and for use of stains (taches) of colour dabbed onto the canvas. Although almost unrecognised in his lifetime, he pioneered a new style of expressive abstraction. In 1955-1964 Wols’ works were exhibited posthumus at documenta 1, documenta II and documenta III. Wols is valued as important pathfinder and representative of Tachisme and Informel.