Miriam Albert – solo exhibition
opening 11th October 2023, 19:00
12th + 13th Oct
The exhibition is the finalisation of the artist’s two-month stay in Armenia that was financed by
Saxony-Anhalt Arts Foundation. The drawings on display are a first inventory of experiences and
observations made on site.
In her visual art work Miriam Albert explores phenomena of perception. Often her work process is
based on a search for traces in the everyday. The casual glance at the immediate surroundings
allows conclusions about more general regularities and structures.
Since the beginning of her stay in Armenia, Miriam Albert’ s fascination is with the continuity of
formal and visual languages that she finds everywhere here. During her forays through the capital,
her eyes were repeatedly drawn to the pavement stones, the design of which changes, so to
speak, at every doorstep. This variety shows a great ornamental playfulness. Often the patterns are
based on the shape of an octagon – a shape that also plays a central role in the sacred space as,
for example, in the floor plans of churches and monastery buildings or in the ornaments of the
cross stones. In addition, the study of the figurative imagery on old grave stones from the 14th
–
16th century is important. It is said that their images stand for the representation of “heavenly
glory”, at a time when earthly life was very troublesome. Similar pictorial symbols recur again and
again – wine jug and shish kebab, scissors, eternity wheel and horse rider – but vary in their design
from region to region. The fact that their meaning has not been finally explored makes the old
images on the one hand mysterious but also grants them, on the other hand, openness to tell
solely about themselves. The transfer of the found forms and images into drawings enables the
artist to approach the image and to deepen what she has seen. In addition, the images are lifted
from their context and in coexistence begin to speak for themselves and with each other.
Miriam Albert was born in 1991 in Karlsruhe (southern Germany) where she also grew up. Between
2012 and 2014 she studied History of Art at Leipzig University, from 2012 till 2020 she studied Fine
Arts (painting/graphics) at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design and in 2017/18 she was
a guest student of archaeology at Martin-Luther University in Halle. In 2020 she graduated with
her diploma and has been living in Halle as a freelance artist ever since. Her works have been on
show in numerous exhibitions, for example at Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe or at the Spinnerei
Leipzig. She has been rewarded several scholarships.
NPAK, 2023
