Zora Mann + Vivien Cahusac de Caux | Stringfigures and Watercolours | ChertLüdde | 06.12.2020-16.01.2021

The exhibition String Figures and Watercolours places Zora Mann’s watercolours next to two paintings by her mother Vivien Cahusac de Caux.

Vivien Cahusac de Caux, born in 1955 in Kampala, Uganda, has painted for most of her life. After a nomadic life, during which she lived for 25 years between Uganda and Kenya, she moved to Germany in 1988. Her rich pictorial expression moves through different styles and themes in a fertile oeuvre and shows a great sensitivity for her surroundings and resources as an autodidact.

In the series Dreamscapes Scenarios, to which the four works in the exhibition belong, fantastic scenes depict life and natural forces. Bright, intense colours contribute to her oneiric constructions. Unlike many of her other works, which look at different geographical locations, each with its own cultural characteristics, Dreamscapes Scenarios is abstract and introspective.

Zora Star Cahusac Mann was born in 1979 in Amersham, Great Britain. She spent her childhood between Europe, Africa and America. She completed her art studies at the Villa Arson in Nice.

Zora Mann, Untitled, 2016, Watercolor on paper, 76.5 × 57 cm; 
Courtesy the artist and ChertLüdde, Berlin

Zora Mann often uses a visual vocabulary that she acquired during her childhood experiences in Kenya, which is combined with a recurrent folkloric and often psychedelic style that is evident in the repetitive composition of geometric shapes, vivid colours and spatial synchronicities that are characteristic of dreams. The visual fragmentation in Mann’s work can allude to emotional states, as landscapes of the interior layered with meaning, memories and feelings. Her surreal, enigmatic paintings and sculptures sometimes represent talismanic or symbolic representations that evoke certain people or situations in their lives. Mann also approaches the concept of healing and protection through paintings, watercolours, etchings, murals, signs and ceramics – works that, through various media, combine her hybrid cultural background with her interest in natural structures, science fiction and psychology.

The works shown in the exhibition illustrate her fascination with the medium of watercolour and how it enables man to engage in a particularly meditative and intimate process. In a recent interview with Éric Mangion, Mann explains: “The watercolours are in a way a travel diary, as many of them were created on journeys. It is as if I carry my home with me. I simply take a sheet of paper and the paint box and can dive into my world.

Zora Mann’s works have been exhibited at the Berlinische Galerie, Villa Arson, Nice, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden Baden, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, Palais De Tokyo, Paris, BKV-Brandeburgischer Kunstverein, Potsdam, among others.

Vivien Cahusac de Caux has been a member of the Kunstkreis Fischbachau since 2003 and has been a member of the VBK (Association of Visual Artists, Munich and Upper Bavaria) since 2016. Her works have been exhibited in recent years in the town hall of Aichach, Schloss Blumenthal, the “Munich Refugee Council” as part of the “Long Night of Museums”, the DGB Haus München, the town hall of Munich and the Kunstpavillon München.