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until 18.10. | #4761ARTatBerlin | Sexauer Gallery shows from 06. September 2025 (Opening: 05.09.) the exhibition “(Non)sense” by the artist Caroline Kryzecki.
Caroline Kryzecki shows paintings on paper. Using the tip of a brush, she paints and dabs thousands of semi-circular shapes into a grid with gouache and watercolour. By changing the size and orientation of the shapes, as well as the different tones and the modu-lation of transparency and opacity, she creates works of great variety despite always using the same approach. The spectrum ranges from very austere to almost psychedelic. In the current exhibition, the almost sixty thousand grid fields of the small works and the over three hundred thousand fields of the large works offer unlimited possibilities for variation.
Caroline exhibits (non)sense paintings. At the beginning of her career, she first became known for her ballpoint pen drawings with thousands of lines. Years later, she developed her grid paintings from these drawings. Using the tip of a brush, she painted and dabbed thousands of small semicircular shapes with gouache and watercolour into a grid. The grid paper was produced for her by the Handsiebdruckerei in Berlin according to her specifications. Kryzecki had conducted her first experiments on grid paper at the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, using old cartridge paper that had once been used by textile designers to sketch patterns.
By changing the size and orientation of the shapes, as well as through the use of different tones and the modulation of transparency and opacity, works of great diversity were created despite the use of the same procedure throughout. The spectrum of impressions ranged from very austere to almost psychedelic. In the current exhibition, the almost sixty thousand grid fields of the small works and the over three hundred thousand fields of the large works once again offer unlimited possibilities for variation.
Caroline Kryzecki, 2024, gouache, watercolor and screen print on paper, 190 x 150 cm, Photo: Marcus Schneider, Courtesy SEXAUER Gallery
The grids of the works have different colours. MALLORCA is printed on the edge of the grid of the smaller formats. Kryzecki developed this grid format during a scholarship stay on Mallorca. She therefore had the place where the grid was developed printed next to it in order to honour the original cartridge paper that had served as her inspiration. The origin, screen size and printing company were also noted in the margin of this paper.
In 2020, Kryzecki presented her paintings to the public for the first time in the solo exhibition Counting Silence at SEXAUER. She limited herself to just two colours: red and blue. Three years later, in 2023, she even reduced her palette to just one colour in the exhibition Kind of Blue: blue. Quite different in (Non)sense – cobalt blue, turquoise, white, copper green, ochre, Naples yellow, zircon pink, Venetian red. A firework of colours.
It is important to realise that the works are created without sketches or the aid of a computer. They are all hand-painted by the artist herself, without any assistants, and develop in the process. And there is a connection here, because unlike with a machine, the hand creates unplanned small deviations and inaccuracies that force the artist to react. This leads to constant changes and adjustments in the work process.
Kryzecki had actually planned a minimalist exhibition, experimenting with white and black tones. However, during the preparations, images of the mosaics of the Alhambra, which she visited in May 2024, came to her mind. The medieval castle in Granada (Andalusia) is one of the most important Moorish-style buildings in Islamic art. The faience mosaics are dominated by the colours coal blue, turquoise, white, copper green, ochre and Naples yellow. The façades of the Nasrid palaces in the castle are pink, in front of which you can see the glow of oranges between lush green leaves flooded with light.
Caroline Kryzecki, Ausstellungsansicht Overbeck-Gesellschaft, 2024, photo: Fred Dott
The colours from memory finally gained the upper hand on the sheet as well, and Kryzecki began to experiment with zirconium pink and green. Green is a difficult colour, which has to do with human perception, but also for technical reasons. The zirconium pink in turn made the brush puff up, probably because of the larger pigments, so that Kryzecki could not paint with it as finely as usual. In short: it was difficult. The works were therefore created much more intuitively. The hand gained the upper hand over the mind. Kryzecki: “Whenever I thought I had a certain idea, my hand decided to do something else.
But the forms also changed. Kryzecki is currently learning Arabic. The Arabic script, which is written from right to left, and the Arabic characters led Kryzecki to the idea of modifying the semi-circular shapes in the grid once again. Kryzecki explains: “I left out squares within the semicircle, always orientated to the grid of the paper. In this way, I achieved a greater gradation: I don’t just have four shapes that create the picture, but ten.”
The basic idea of a minimalist exhibition resulted in an explosion of different shapes and colours. Everything else was different this time too. Kryzecki normally develops notations for her works, which she uses to describe them almost mathematically. She also enters all the colour tones neatly in the books provided for this purpose. A large archive. Everything full of meaning and order. Nothing like that this time – instead chaos, (non)sense.
The works in the last exhibitions had a lot to do with the minimalist music of the second half of the twentieth century. John Cage and Steve Reich are important to the artist. Time, rhythm, beat, phase shifts. This also seems different this time. If anything, in terms of music, this time it is more about sound and tone. Italo Pop, the artist says ironically when asked.
In her artistic work, Kryzecki speaks of times of “zooming in” and times of “zooming out”. Zooming in means breaking the work down to its essence, picking out a parameter, thinking it through, crystallising the pure idea; leaving out everything that is unnecessary. Zooming out means: every work is a new idea, many different approaches. Each work harbours the potential for a new series. This time was probably the time to zoom out. Kryzecki: “I didn’t want to decide yet and try out all the ideas.
Opening: Friday, 05. September 2025, 6 pm.
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 06. September until Saturday, 18. October 2025
To the gallery
Title image caption: Caroline Kryzecki, watercolor and screen print on paper, 190 x 150 cm, Courtesy SEXAUER Gallery
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Exhibition Caroline Kryzecki – Sexauer Gallery | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
