Sophie Tottie. Material Marks (as far as I can reach)

Giacomo Guidi Arte Contemporanea – Milan – is pleased to announce the opening of Material Marks (as far as I can reach), the first solo exhibition in Italy of the Berlin based artist Sophie Tottie, curated by Daria Filardo.

Rooting her interest in abstraction, drawing and painting, thus for what is traditionally understood to be the space of representation, the artist investigates the continuous slippage between the defining categories of painting, drawing and object. Sophie Tottie’s artistic vocabulary is constituted of abstract marks, engraved, painted or drawn lines, on media such as paper, metal, acrylic glass and is always specifically installed in order to relate to room and spectators

The artist references abstract and minimalist avant-garde and neo avant-garde, apparently maintaining the rigour, pragmatism, and mystical value of those artistic gestures. Tottie translates those very gestures into performative repetition, which become a device that connects physical and mental space, the measure of her body with the physical demarcation of the work.

The resulting patterns and surfaces are made of reiteration of marks, continuous or broken lines, often similar to seismic traces and geological sediments constantly and unpredictably shifted in the process of their own making. The exhibition presents a wide selection of work, which gives the opportunity to explore the development of the artist’s research.

Written language (line drawings), is a series of large drawings made out of India ink, where the mark – sometimes light, sometimes thick – fills the entire surface, carrying with it the failures, deviations and errors that become the unique vehicle of representation. In the series White lines (metal drawings) stainless steel or copper plates of various sizes are engraved with drawn lines or circular shapes that force their own edges to expand.

White lines (wubg.tds) is a series of small size oil paintings on paper, where the variations of colour give way to potential infinite combinations. Finally White lines (wubg.tds) Series I, is a large painting on acrylic glass panels, in which the painterly gesture plays with the changing light of the room and the sculptural physicality of the medium.

Sophie Tottie (Stockholm – Sweden, 1964), lives and works in Berlin and Stockholm. From 1994 to date she has been the winner of many awards and residencies including ISP – International Studio Program, NY; The Elizabeth Foundation, NY; I.A.S.P.I.S., Stockholm; Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, Berlin. Her work has been exhibited internationally in places such as MoMA and The Drawing Center, New York; Kiasma, Helsinki; Moderna Museet; Malmö konstmuseum; Gothenburg Art Museum; Vancouver Art Gallery; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Venice Biennale; Castello di Rivoli. She is represented in the institutional collections of MoMA in New York, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Malmö konstmuseum, the Schering Stiftung and Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. Tottie was recently appointed professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Previously, she was a professor at the Malmö Art Academy and Lund University as well as a guest lecturer at Harvard University.

Sophie Tottie. Material Marks (as far as I can reach)

artists:
Sophie Tottie

curators:
Daria Filardo