Transient landscapes in the water

Under the title Of rivers and tributaries, two months on the riverbank, Marianne Hopf showed her new works in Damnatz in December 2024, which she created there during a residency fellowship. In the village on the Elbe, the painter, who devotes herself to the original forces of nature in a state of constant change, revealed a river landscape that enriches her oeuvre with new facets.

In this interview, Marianne Hopf, who is taking part in the Art.Salon artist program, provides further insights into her time in Damnatz:

Dear Ms. Hopf, thank you very much for taking the time for this interview. You come from Freiburg and live in Lahr/Black Forest and Berlin. What interested you about a stay in Damnatz?

I was offered this residency scholarship by the Cordts Art Foundation, which made me very happy and curious. As I was planning to go to the opening of NordArt at that time anyway, because I was represented there with works, the detour to Damnatz fitted very well into my route. Both the sculpture garden, which the sculptor couple Monika and Klaus Müller-Klug built up over decades of work and are still making changes to, as well as their perseverance and artistic approach, impressed and touched me very much.

The prospect of being able to work in this natural river landscape directly on the Elbe on the one hand, and on the other to move in an artistic environment very finely tuned to the special landscape, made it easy for me to decide that it was time to challenge my painting anew by encountering a foreign landscape. The aim was to irritate the »handling« of painting. In the encounter with a foreign landscape, the gaze and the hand have to reorganize themselves.

What expectations did you have when you traveled to Damnatz and were they fulfilled?

I already knew that my home would be a tiny house in the adjoining museum barn up in the beams, which is a uniquely bizarre place to live. It soon turned out that I had a lot of visitors at night, who almost nibbled my ear off, but that didn't take anything away from the »aerie charm«. I was able to concentrate on fine-tuning my paintings there, which I painted during the day in a separate part of the sculptor's studio. I was interested in the riverside landscape, but what I experienced far exceeded that.

What did you not expect beforehand?

For example, I didn't know that many bird species gather there before they fly to their winter quarters. As a result, the air was filled day and night with the calls, chirping and chattering of thousands of birds moving back and forth across the river in flocks, arriving and departing. I also didn't know that there was virtually no light pollution and that even the Milky Way was clearly visible in the night sky.

I was very touched by the warmth and openness with which I was met, as well as the realization of various life dreams; be it in art, with nature, in nature conservation or individual living communities.

How did your time there affect your work?

My original idea was to get closer to the waterfront landscape. But the appearance and temporal progression of the water reflections were much more interesting. There were pure explosions of color, doubled and only separated by a narrow line, moments of sensory overload.

A true spectacle for the eye. A challenge for art. Reduction to the essentials was the task here. The painting and drawing approach formed a process of reflection, which at the same time repeatedly opened up new »terrain«. A terrain in which, over time, change, appearance and temporality became the leading experience.

Now that you are working at home again, which impressions of the landscape do you remember the most?

The temporal progression of water reflections, untouched nature reserves and the resounding and multi-layered soundscape of various flocks of birds.

You have already received several grants for artist residencies, including in New York City and Iceland. How would you compare these residencies?

I was also able to find inner stillness and concentration in Iceland, where the power and violence of the forces of nature are always palpable and present. I didn't notice this energy, which literally imposes images, on the Elbe. In New York, on the other hand, I had to fight to concentrate.

If you could choose freely: Which region would you like to explore artistically and why?

I can imagine going even further north. In my new series ShowDown, fire and ice stand opposite each other as the extreme poles on the scale of movement between melting and solidification and at the same time determine their fusion. It is the overwhelming power of natural forces that fascinates me and at the same time becomes a challenge to find a way of dealing with them that makes life possible.

Thank you very much for the interview.