Art, Painting, Contemporary Art
I´m longing for the cracks in reality.
Born in Hamburg I spent half of my youth in southern Italy. I lived in close touch to nature and my perception of the world was shaped by its endless beauty and force.
I was at home in an animistic world.
For a child the world is enchanted, mysterious. Airplanes, internet, and holograms are as astonishing as ghosts and witches, tales are of the same trueness than documentaries, evolution itself conveys quite a magical impression.
Growing up I didn't let go of this: it was the Renaissance that attracted me with its abundance of angels and demons being a normal part of the world, the literature of Latin America creating a unique reality that discovers and reveals reality from a new perspective.
I have been and am still inspired by Haruki Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Christoph Ransmayr, Daniel Kehlmann, I am always intrigued by all kinds of logical constructions planted on a different fundament than the normal one and I don’t really like the contradiction between reality and fiction, I don’t like those borders besides they do make me struggle from time to time.
I am constantly in search of something that goes beyond what is palpable at the surface of everyday life, the fusion between the real and the unreal.
And even though this may be fiction, it helps us to name our world and see our place in it.
It conveys or explores the truth behind reality.
THE MOMENT
2019, SOLO EXHIBITION, GALLERY TAITH, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
EDEN
2018, 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)
ON THE ROAD
2017, 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
OF TIME AND LIGHT
2013, 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
ARCHAICS
2012, SOLO EXHIBITION, KUNSTVEREIN HATTINGEN, GERMANY
STUDIO EXHIBITION
2011, SOLO EXHIBITION, STUDIO SCHAPERSTRASSE, BERLIN, GERMANY
ZEIT LICHT
2011, 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
2011, GROUP EXHIBITION, BALLHAUS IM NORDPARK, DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY
TRACING PENTHESILEA
2010, GALLERY GOLKAR, BONN, GERMANY
2010, AAF AMSTERDAM
2010, SHANGHAI ART FAIR
2008, DEATH OF MY FIRST HUSBAND DR. JOACHIM KOCH
GOOD AMERICA - BAD AMERICA
2007, GROUP EXHIBITION, MUSEUM WALTER, AUGSBURG, GERMANY
NO TITLE
2006, GROUP EXHIBITION KUNSTVEREIN NEUEHRENFELD, COLOGNE, GERMANY
2005, BIRTH OF THE SECOND CHILD
WELCOME TO PARADISE
2004, MEGAHERTZ RECORDS, 72 SINGLE, 300 LIMIT
PHANTASTIC CREATURES
2003, SOLO EXHIBITION, WUERTTEMBERGISCHES PALAIS, REGENSBURG,GERMANY
WATER
2003, NIGHT OF THE MUSEUMS, REGENSBURG GERMANY
2002, BIRTH OF THE FIRST CHILD
SALON
2002, GROUP EXHIBITION, SALON D´ORPHÉE, REGENSBURG, GERMANY
THE TIME OF THE DOGS
2002, 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)
PENTHESILEA - DER UNGELENKTE WILLE
2001, 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)
SOGNANDO DIO
2000, SOLO EXHIBITION, CENTRO PELLEGRINI, ROME, ITALY
Painting in oil I want to create structure, so I use modelling pastes and different peculiar materials like sand, earth, plaster, gels and others.
Sometimes I mistreat the canvas because I want it to crackle at certain parts and to look used and old and rough. The mixture of precisely elaborated parts and a canvas that seems to mutate into its terminal stage creates evanescence for me and I like that. I often overpaint already used canvas because I prefer the ground to be incalculable.
That's how life is after all.