«Although or especially because of its stiffness (attained during processing), cardboard allows to show up processes and structures on the finished object long afterwards. Furrows, tears and dents remain recognisable and even just physically express what as a subject matters most to me: the vulnerability of human beings and their relationships.»
Material and technique
Liz Gehrer has found her personal form of artistic expression in her sculptures employing cardboard, iron and parchment paper, which she started using only recently as a material. In the shaping of her works of art paste, which as an adhesive and hardener develops and transforms unusual dynamics of it’s own onto the sculptures, takes on an exceptional role. Thus metal bars bend under the force of drying parchment paper soaked in paste. Liz Gehrer is attracted by the material contrast and the seeming reversal of scientific laws. The colouring of her objects and paintings is guided by the archaic nature of her materials. Few primary colours such as red and blue blend with the broad palette of earthy colours employed, or black and white.
Imagery and artistic concern
In recycled cardboard, as packaging and general use material typical of our time, Liz Gehrer has discovered a fascinating opportunity to link subject matters, material and technique in an unusual manner. ‹Life leaves behind traces› is the subtitle of the first catalogue of her work. Many of her cardboard sculptures name aspects of human existence in their title. Stirred and Conflict, Waiting and Disintegration, Attached and Closeness – sculptures that speak of a deeply felt existence. They are ‹oversized, overly slim human silhouettes› (O.Pfister), without faces or limbs, speaking to the viewer in a manner which is silent but nevertheless moving. With their furrowed surfaces, the abruptly projecting metal struts, their tears and deep dents the slim figures turn into metaphors of loneliness and transience. Liz Gehrer portrays the human being naked, without a protective wrapping, without innocent pretence, but in the whole helpless seclusion of its existence. The vertical overextension of her figures associates the increasing individualisation, self-centeredness and inability of communicating in a society which on the other hand is essential to life. The choice of worthless throwaway products as basic materials for sculptures exposes the ever present process of decay. Her cardboard and metal sculptures are designed to last, but are subject to certain changes, particularly if exposed to the elements. They begin an individual life of their own. A life that can lead to change or some (far away) day to destruction. In this Liz Gehrer points out the absurdity of the traditional claim that sculpture permanently immortalises artistic expression.
Coincidence and intent guide the artistic creation in Liz Gehrers objects and pictures made out of parchment paper. An interaction with the individualism of the materials. Parchment paper soaked in paste loses it’s fragility in the process of drying. Paper sheets drying in the wind freeze in motion. Clasps and rods of rusty iron seem to have to give way to the forces of the parchment strips spanning them. Again and again the artist grants the materials their own dynamics. She supports and completes the process with the sparse, expressively abstract painting of her objects.
The art of Liz Gehrer touches and affects. It throws up fundamental questions of existence. The arts are communication. Is communication possible at all?
Stefanie Dathe-Grob, introduction to the works, Bonstetten 1996 Stefanie Dathe-Grob, art historian and Ph.D., is i.a. curator of Forum der besonderen Art, Herz-Zentrum Bodensee II, Konstanz, Germany