Review

Pia
Fries

Fred Thieler Award for Painting 2009

Based on the conceptual painting of her Düsseldorf tutor Gerhard Richter Pia Fries has developed an independent approach to painting.

Her latest works in particular are deliberately situated at the border between abstraction and representation. Almost like a sculptor she uses color as a 3-dimensional material and reduces the spectrum of colors. The representational character of her painting, which tends towards botanical issues is also emphasized by fragments of pictures that are included in the paintings. As already in earlier works Fries uses clippings of enlarged illustrations of two publications by Sibylla Merian (1647–1717): New Book of Flowers and Origins, Food and Marvellous Transformation of Caterpillars. These illustrations serve as primary source for pasotse gestural color applications that appear to be random structures but have actually ornamental function. These works as well as a large-size painting that was created especially for this exhibition are shown in the main hall. We are very pleased with the jury’s decision and compliment Pia Fries on this award.

The jury: Jörn Merkert, Karin Sander, Angela Schneider, Frank Badur, Trak Wendisch