Carola Ernst

Carola Ernst’s work, which takes the form of diverse media, plays with many visual layers—and hence, with many layers of perception. Most of her motives, which deal with illusions, hallucinations, and physiological as well as psychological sides of sight, can be traced back to visual spectacles and works of art. Accordingly, complex arcs of tension pervade Ernst’s work, which fluctuates between the classic categories of painting, sculpture, and drawing. The basis for the show at St. Petri’s in Lübeck is the group of works known as Axes of Psychophysics, which the artist has been working on for more than ten years.  In her pictorial compositions, Ernst’s work shifts between borrowings from Expressionism and the different varieties of Informalism, developing an independent, inimitable formal vocabulary out of these variations. Music, from classical to breakcore, is also an influence on her creative process. The publication, which features essays by Rosa Bindernagel, Yannick Courbés, and Oliver Zybok, provides an overview of Ernst’s work from the past decade.