Art, Painting, Contemporary Art
Reality is a foreign language to me.
So in order to understand it I transform it, trying to catch the meaning. Maybe we all are doing that in some way or another, I don´t know.
Probably you are only doing it if you feel the need to catch a meaning.
Sometimes I perceive reality as something that should be improved and so I have to work my way through the contradiction between how the world is and how it could be - by mingling reality with my interpretation of it: a mix of my desires, my wishes, associations from the past and from a fictional present.
I was born in Hamburg, Germany, but grew up partially in the South of Italy, where I liked it better. Nature was beautiful and stirred my urge to create something too - to be part of it. This is some time ago and I´m not part of anything but I´m still trying, living a constant battle between a cramped reality and the freedom that I want.
2021
GALLERY PHILOART, WUPPERTAL, GERMANY
2020
DAS FREMDE IN UNS
GROUP EXHIBITION, GALLERY PHILOART, WUPPERTAL, GERMANY
2019
THE MOMENT
SOLO EXHIBITION, GALLERY TAITH, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
2018
EDEN
SOLO EXHIBITION AND READING OF THE SHORT STORY EDEN, GALLERY PHILOART, WUPPERTAL, GERMANY
"In Lara Bandillas art word and image, text and painting depend on each other as two sides of the same coin. Her imagination and creativity does not stop at the boundary of an art form but pushes beyond. Crossing the genres she narrates her stories through paintings and text. And when both of them come together a multidimensional tableau takes shape for the observer, new ways of understanding, of interpretation and of sensual perception present themselves....Lara Bandilla succeeds in finding an artistic space for "reality subjectively perceived as a contrast to personal freedom". Her works are perfectly staged crossings between photorealistic precision and abstract painting."
(Dr. Michael Troesser, K24 Ratingen)
2017
ON THE ROAD
SOLO EXHIBITION, GALLERY STEINER, BERLIN, GERMANY
"In the face of the forces of nature, all human existence is null and void - a quintessence conveyed by almost all the stories that present a world "without us". If every civilization is broken, what remains of Homo sapiens? In her exhibition "On the Road - The Poetry of the Post-apocalypse", which begins this Friday, the Berlin artist Lara Bandilla is asking herself precisely this question. Her focus is on the roads that will remain only in collective memory after the end of mankind and can illustrate what would have been possible. Bandilla dissects a post-apocalyptic world into layers and snapshots. If one follows them, city, river and star maps and imaginary spaces unfold - a poetic approach to a non-place. The world shown by Bandilla consists of elements of language, the surreal and everyday life, which dissolve again and again in order to re-form in the next step. The artist partitiones her pictures into different layers in order to get a different view of the streets and the world."
(neues deutschland, Januar 2017)
2014
BIRTH OF THE THIRD CHILD
2013
OF TIME AND LIGHT
SOLO EXHIBITION, IA&A HILLYER ART SPACE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
„Hamburg-born, Berlin-based Lara Bandilla has spent most of her life in a handful of German cities. But the paintings in “Of Time and Light,” her Hillyer Art
Space show, don’t feel rooted in place. Bandilla depicts a world in flux, whether jungle is collapsing into town (“Breathe”) or two metropolises are fusing into one (“Shanghai Cologne”). The dreamlike pictures include areas of near-photographic realism, but also sections where the image seems to melt — more in the manner of Gerhard Richter’s photo-derived blurs than Salvador Dali’s drippy surrealism. Bandilla’s palette is heavy on blue, with occasional red counterpoints. But the transitions often involve hot white, which both illuminates and obscures, like sunlight so bright that it temporarily blinds. Time is harder to depict, but the artist conjures a sense of movement, both with impressionistic style and in the choice of locales. The paintings often show streets and other passageways, notably a swoop of earth that follows a rail line. The eye is drawn in several directions, including toward the frayed seam between memory and actuality.“
(Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 2013)
„Lara Bandilla creates large-scale oil paintings perched on the boundary between photorealism and surrealism.... her strongest works are almost cinematic, notably a selection of street views facing into the sun, a setting that produces extreme contrasts a la Garry Winogrand.“
(Louise Jacobson , Washington City Paper, 2013)
DELEGATION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION TO THE UNITED STATES, CONVERSATIONS IN CULTURE: OF TIME AND LIGHT
2012
ARCHAICS
SOLO EXHIBITION, KUNSTVEREIN HATTINGEN, GERMANY
2011
STUDIO EXHIBITION
SOLO EXHIBITION, STUDIO SCHAPERSTRASSE, BERLIN, GERMANY
ZEIT LICHT
SOLO EXHIBITION, CHRISTUSKIRCHE COLOGNE, GERMANY
„Lara Bandillas Bilderserie handelt von Licht und Bewegung, von Zeit und Raum. Ihre Werke sind eindringlich und berührend. Der Betrachter blickt in die Momentaufnahme eines Augenblicks, während sich ihm zeitgleich ein Raum in die Unendlichkeit öffnet. Die Bilder dienen als Ausgangspunkt für eine Reise in die Endlosigkeit. Durch die an Fotos erinnernden Gemälde erfährt der Rezipient einen hohen objektiven Wiedererkennungswert. Dieser katapultiert ihn fast augenblicklich in die subjektive Welt der eigenen Wahrnehmung. Durch die besondere Darstellungsweise des Lichts rufen die Bilder im Betrachter Erinnerungen an eine bestimmte Tages- oder Jahreszeit hervor. Deren Greifbarkeit gleitet durch die Finger, während sich im selben Moment Zeitlosigkeit einstellt. Ähnlich eines Filmstills zeigen die Gemälde Momentaufnahmen einer Bewegung und sind doch so vieles mehr. Mittels der unvereinbaren Überlagerungen der Motive sind sie Ausgangspunkt einer Begegnung mit dem eigenen Sein. Die Emotionen, welche die Werke transportieren, sind greifbar, ohne dass man sie benennen und bestimmen kann. Sie rufen Erinnerungen wach. Erinnerungen an Stimmungen, an Momente, in denen das Leben still steht. Momente ohne Gesichter, ohne Fakten, bestehend aus Eindrücken und Wahrnehmung. Lara Bandilla zeigt in ihren Gemälden ihre philosophische Sicht auf den Alltag. Sie bietet dem Rezipienten die Möglichkeit sich selbst im Alltag neu zu erfahren. Mit der Betrachtung der Bilder entsteht eine Möglichkeit dem persönlichen Blickwinkel eine andere Richtung zu geben.“
(Heike Geier, Diplom Kulturwissenschaftlerin, Köln 2011)
"In den lichtdurchfluteten Straßenszenen aus jüngerer Zeit überlagern sich verschiedene Ebenen, fließen etwas Motive aus Köln und Shanghai auf einem Exponat nahtlos ineinander. Dabei werden die Szenarien teilweise von einem gleißend-hellen Licht überstrahlt, das ihnen einen surrealen Anstrich verleiht. Der Eindruck von Licht und Bewegung ist prägend für die Bildserie, in der die Malerin den Betrachter mit einer "anderen Wirklichkeit" konfrontiert... Überirdisch lässt das weiße Licht die Straßenfluchten und Plätze erscheinen...die Verschmelzung disparater Motive, die stürzenden Linien, die bewusste Unschärfe und die dramatischen Hell-Dunkel-Kontraste erschweren die Verortung, die von Bandilla auch gar nicht beabsichtigt ist. "Ich will den Augenblick der Zeitlosigkeit einfangen", erklärt die Malerin, deren Bilder an Film-Sequenzen erinnern."
(Hannah Styrie, Kölner Rundschau, Juni 2011)
LICHT SCHWEBE RAUM
GROUP EXHIBITION, BALLHAUS IM NORDPARK, DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY
2010
TRACING PENTHESILEA
GALLERY GOLKAR, BONN, GERMANY
AAF AMSTERDAM
SHANGHAI ART FAIR
2008
DEATH OF MY FIRST HUSBAND DR. JOACHIM KOCH
2007
GOOD AMERICA - BAD AMERICA
GROUP EXHIBITION, MUSEUM WALTER, AUGSBURG, GERMANY
2006
GROUP EXHIBITION KUNSTVEREIN NEUEHRENFELD, COLOGNE, GERMANY
2005
BIRTH OF THE SECOND CHILD
2004
WELCOME TO PARADISE
MEGAHERTZ RECORDS, 72 SINGLE, 300 LIMIT
2003
PHANTASTIC CREATURES
SOLO EXHIBITION, WUERTTEMBERGISCHES PALAIS, REGENSBURG,GERMANY
WATER
NIGHT OF THE MUSEUMS, REGENSBURG GERMANY
2002
BIRTH OF THE FIRST CHILD
SALON
GROUP EXHIBITION, SALON D´ORPHÉE, REGENSBURG, GERMANY
THE TIME OF THE DOGS
SOLO EXHIBITION, KULTURSPEICHER REGENSBURG, GERMANY
„The Kulturspeicher shows works of Lara Bandilla...which reflects relentlessly the primeval fears of humanity....a dark interpretation of the present age...the paintings do frighten and perplex us, they take our anxieties out of the depth and provoke the observer to deal with them...the artist shows a decaying, destructive, lonely and threatening world.“
(Svenja Alberts, Regensburger Kultur 2001)
2001
PENTHESILEA - DER UNGELENKTE WILLE
SOLO EXHIBITION, KLEIST MUSEUM, FRANKFURT ODER, GERMANY
„....a hardrock-opera, no classical staging, modern and up to date...for all senses and Kleist only, that is Penthesilea. In this exhibition Lara Bandilla explores the queen of the Amazons with haunting oilpaintings and sculptures...plastic, metal, bones and varnish symbolize the hardness and odd aggressivity of the character...“
(ORB TV, Querstrasse - das Kulturmagazin 2001)
„Lara Bandilla gave Penthesilea a body of iron and a spiritual face. She is a fighter, a female hero, deep of thoughts and grimly. The passionate and torn Penthesilea of Kleist is turned into a thinking- and fightingmachine, lacking only the right and guided will...a young audience appreciates the adamant Penthesilea made of mixed materials...“
(RADIOkultur Journal 2001)
2000
SOGNANDO DIO
SOLO EXHIBITION, CENTRO PELLEGRINI, ROME, ITALY