Anne Wölk

Imagination is more than knowledge. My paintings are for visionary people and future enthusiasts. I want to achieve a visual experience that transforms the viewer's soul.

Anne Wölk was born and raised in former East Germany. She is a figurative painter whose artistic work stands in the tradition of realistic contemporary artists Vija Celmins and Russel Crotty. Committed to an attitude of reskilling, Wölk uses traditional methods and materials. Wölk uses traditional methods and materials. Her paintings predominantly show us night sky scenes with deep and open galaxies. By quoting Spacetelescope images and digital photography resources, the artist tests the margins between art and reality.

Anne Wölk’s recent painting series illuminates our earthly relationships through an exploration into the mysteries and speculative realities of the universe. Enveloped in the rich blues of the vast universe and the outstretched arms of the galaxies, Berlin based artist transports us through the nebulae to introduce us to an extraordinary foreign world that is eerily similar to our own. When viewing her paintings you suddenly find yourself lost traversing the cosmos; a cohesive journey created through the precision, skill, and passion Wölk infuses into each individual work through her months of dedication. The paintings, which consists of oil and acrylic pieces from three of Wölk’s most prominent series, explores the universe from its seemingly microscopic details to the vast regions that are beyond our mental grasp.

The viewer begins outstretched to the furthest expanses of the heavens. Works from her Nebulae series create textured, ethereal depictions of the gaseous cloudscapes. Wölk investigates these epicenters of cosmic creation with a gestural nature that transforms these formidable swirling masses into delicate whisps illuminated by the galaxies they embody. The viewer then ventures deeper as they are met with pieces from her Planet Spheres series. These three-dimensional works use acrylic paint on styrofoam spheres producing the sensation that the viewer has encountered this unknown world on their travels through space. The viewer journeys closer to this unfamiliar planet where they view the natural landscape collide against the cosmos. Lastly, the viewer finds themselves grounded in this mysterious world. Quiet mountain landscapes under endless starry skies are met with peculiar scientific architecture. These pieces from the Starscape series show life from the ground on these new planets. As we stare out into the darkness, Earth itself has become a microscopic element lost in the cosmic void.

Wölk brings these intergalactic scenes to life in an interdisciplinary manner that provides familiarity to the viewer. While an inherent painterly romanticism looms over each work it becomes clear that Wölk draws from astronomical photography, such as from the Hubble telescope, and imagery from science fiction that are prevalent throughout modern culture. She builds upon these elements by creating scenes that blur the line between fiction and reality to question the relationship between man and nature.

In 2006, the young artist entered the international art world at the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, when the collector Can Elgiz bought one of her large-scale paintings for the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art in Istanbul. Her painting Doggirl was shown in several thematic group exhibitions next to famous artists Cindy Sherman, Tracy Emin, and Sarah Morris.
Later on, Anne Wölk received an MFA from the School of Art and Design Berlin and was a BFA student at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. After graduating from art school in 2009, the painter became known for beautiful large-scale landscape paintings and was selected and shortlisted for several international competitions and scholarships.

Her awards include the national Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes scholarship; the Alpine Fellowship grant at Aldourie Castle, Scotland, UK; a residency at Bodensee Art Fund; and an artist-in-residence grant in Goriska Brda, Slovenia, awarded by the German Embassy, Ljubljana. She has exhibited at international institutions, including the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey; the CICA Art Museum South Korea; the Zeiss-Planetarium Berlin, Germany; the Accra Goethe-Institut Ghana; and the Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republik.
She has exhibited and sold on the international art market, including the Swab Art Fair Barcelona in Spain; Viennafair in Vienna, Austria; KIAF Seoul in South Korea; and Contemporary Istanbul in Turkey.
Wölk has since shown her work in private gallery shows, including Galería Luis Adelantado, Valencia, Spain; Arebyte Gallery, London, UK; Galerie Wolfsen, Aalborg, Denmark; Pantocrator Gallery, Shanghai, China; Alfa Gallery Miami, USA; and The Residence Gallery, London, UK.

What is it about your studio space that inspires you?

I love the effects of the sun moving through the studio at different angles during the day. Sometimes direct sunlight lends to the mood of the artwork, especially when dealing with the light of interstellar objects.

What is your favourite material to work with? How has your use of it evolved throughout your practice?

I love oil paints. They are king of the ring when blending colors together. One great property of oil paints is that they don't change color when they dry as opposed, for example, to acrylics or watercolor. Oils stay pretty-much the same for a long period of time. I start a painting with a sketch. I carry out this preliminary drawing with black or white charcoal. When I work in a large format, I sometimes draw a grid to be able to transfer a cluster of stars more precisely. I always work on about three to five works of art at the same time.

What themes do you pursue?

My subject matter is driven by my fascination for outer space exploration and the search for life on other planets. Since 2017, I mainly deal with the representation of cosmic space and unimaginable distances like light-years. Stars that appear in my pictures as tiny little details represent, in reality, vast worlds in distant areas of space. Next to science fiction, I am also conceptually inspired by scientific investigations about new colonies on possible life-friendly planets. In this context, some of my works are intended to address the power structure of who will have access to a potential Planet B.

What advice has had the biggest impact on your career?

Being a full-time artist could be tough. Keep your artist friends close to you. Support them whenever you can. They will do the same for you.

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