"Träumende" abstract clay sculpture

• Work title: "Träumende"
• Series: no
  
• Dimensions: approx. 26 x 28 x 22 cm
• Artist: Katrin Jähne
• Materials: Terracotta
  
• handmade unique object
• Creation: 2018
• gallery certificate included

The artist Katrin Jähne was born in Dresden and grew up in her beloved hometown. In 1980 she learned the profession of retoucher in the Saxon Porcelain Manufactory Dresden. It became clear early on that this alone was not enough for her: she was looking for more and  fulfilled her dream of creative form design with the help of self-employment. Unbridled desire for sculptural design led her to study sculpture at the HfBK Dresden.

In 1996 she moved into the newly opened Künstlerhaus in Görlitz, where she experienced two years of exciting, highly creative artistic work and encounters with other artists from a wide range of disciplines. She spent a total of 18 years in Lower Silesian Upper Lusatia, where she drew on new artistic ideas and created artistic sculptures and sculptures (mainly from clay and papier-mâché). Later, the artist was drawn back to her hometown, and since November 2014 she has been living and working in a picturesque location on the outskirts of Dresden. Jähne still loves working with soft, malleable material and continued to expand her techniques. Volumes that curve, expand, fractures and wonderfully swaying lines increasingly excite her. The aesthetics of surfaces, materials in interaction - in harmony or disharmony fascinate Jähne again and again and permeate her artistic work.

Working method
Jähne works as a sculptor mainly sculpturally. She loves to build up materials, to work out new spaces with volumes. She is inspired in particular by random forms in everyday life and nature. Real experienced forms mix methodically, Jähne reformulates what she has seen until they take on new final form. The basis of her works is always the confrontation with the natural and real environment as well as the inner state of mind. Some works live only from their form, others tell stories, pose questions and evoke sensitive emotions. The sculptor develops her Sculptures mainly with the materials papier-mâché and terracotta.

The medium paper is a fascinating material for the artist, which allows for two- as well as three-dimensional creations. Paper enables a spatial illusion of heavy compactness, of cool and solid surfaces on two-dimensional space. Over a basic framework, Jähne first forms paper pulp in countless layers on top of each other. After the final drying process, the surface is sanded over and colored.

Sometimes she is guided by a clear idea, to which the final form is ultimately subordinated. Even during the working process, inner images are constantly expanding. Jähne is primarily interested in the female body in her work. For her, content is mainly formulated through physicality. In doing so, the body frees itself from too much realism and attention to detail. Her reductions often concern the head and limbs. The body, the torso, takes on the function of gesture, facial expression and transports significant emotions through the sensual expansion of its volumes. The artist is fascinated by the visual and tactile sensuality of the shaped surface of the paper, the illusion of heaviness and coldness which it radiates when so worked. Light, soft and warm, this sensuality reveals itself in the touch.

Her second love is clay, the malleable earth, whose sensuality becomes visible and perceptible both in the working process and in its earthen final state. This material also conceals the soft, yielding and brittle, baked final. It builds Terracotta freely, in curved slabs or modelled in clay, in order to form small, limited serial variations by moulding in plaster, the surfaces of which are designed differently, for example glazed, coloured or tinted.

Artistic career (excerpt)

2013        Scholarship stay at the Kunsthaus Schwabingen, Upper Palatinate
2015        Lecturer in adult further education, artistic work as sculptor

Important personal exhibitions (excerpt)

1995    Gallery NO, Baden-Baden
1998    "Katrin und Adrian Jähne", Annenkapelle Görlitz
1999    "Balance der täglichen Dinge", Kunsthaus Siebenlehn (with Karin Heyne)
2001    "Ich Plastik Du Grafik", Galerie Kunstlade, Zittau (with Frank Hüller)
2003    "Körperhaft", Annenkapelle Görlitz (with Berit Molau)
           "ZIW - Jenes Licht", Museum Dittelsdorf Galerie (with B. Böhme, G. Tiedeken)
2004    "Plastik; Terracotta and papier mache", Lower Orangery, Baroque Garden Großsedlitz
2007    "Trio Femme`nale",    Annenkapelle, Görlitz (with Bettina Böhme, Angelika John)
2010    Kunstkontor, Seiffen (with Bettina Böhme)
2013    Galerie im Ernst-Rietschel Geburtshaus Pulsnitz (with Isa Brützke and Heike Dittrich)
2014    "Kopfkanon" Schloss Königshain with Karin Heyne
2015    "Kontraste", Galerie Kunstlade Zittau (with T. Krautschick)
2016    galerie drei, Dresden, "3 D", (with Kornelia Thümmel and Barbara Wiesner)
2019    "How I can tell", Galerie der Kreativen Werkstatt Dresden e.V.

Works in public ownership

-     Kliniken Pulsnitz/Ernst - Rietschel - Kunstring
-    Kulturhistorisches Museum Stadt Görlitz
-    Klinikum Görlitz

Art awards

1997        Laureate of the "Art Prize of Upper Lusatia