Quiet elegance and fragile beauty

From ceramics and jewelry to drawing and painting to digital art and performance art, the Florence Biennale art and design fair is characterized by an enormous range of works and is known for its strong international focus. The 15th edition of the fair, founded in 1997, will take place from October 18 to 26 and is titled The Sublime Essence of Light and Darkness. Concepts of Dualism and Unity in Contemporary Art and Design. The fair also impresses with its unique venue, the Fortezza da Basso, a former fortress located in the immediate vicinity of Florence's main train station.

Gerlind Hentze and Katja Nordmeyer, two artists from the Art.Salon artist program, are also represented at the Florence Biennale. Gerlind Hentze lives and works in Glienicke/Nordbahn in Brandenburg. Her artistic work includes painting, sculpture, book art, reliefs with pigment and chalk, wax works, and collages on paper. Hentze's multi-layered works combine figurative and abstract elements to create parables of human life. In Florence, she is exhibiting three sculptures in which she explores the tension between calm and movement. With their deliberately applied non-finito technique and restrained color palette, the rotating figures unfold elegant forces from the heaviness of the blocks: »Delicate, reduced contours tell of balance, inner movement, and the breath of existence«, explains the artist.

Hamburg-based painter Katja Nordmeyer is presenting mixed media portrait paintings on perforated aluminum in Florence. The tactile character of her work is created by combining oil paints with a special marble filler that cracks during the drying process. »The cracks symbolize the individual experiences, traumas, and emotional heritage that shape each person and tell their unique story of pain and beauty«, says Nordmeyer about her works, which refer to the deep-seated similarities between people, regardless of their different cultures. The artist, who has completed several psychology courses in addition to her art studies, uses her paintings to appeal for respect and a sense of togetherness in society.