Isabel Kerkermeier assembles found objects into installations that function like floating drawings in space. As sculptures, they free themselves from the voluminosity and unfold even strongly through the volume of the space, marked and filled through the lines, colours, tension, dynamics and balance in her works. In the idea of a structure where transparency is bringing the space into the object, the artist – within her unlimited spectrum of colour and materiality – is concerned with a clear setting and a certain spatial-formal rigour. Following this premise, she creates directly from the material, processing industrially produced utilitarian objects such as tubular steel furniture (for instance tables and chairs) or sports equipment, which imply a direct allusion to the human body’s proportions, positions and movements. Thus, the physical reference to the installed objects – here, the sculptures unfolding overhead – arises naturally, yet at the same time irritatingly, as the gaze searches for points of reference along the lines and surfaces. Combining a painterly use of colour with a three-dimensional object allows the artist to act freely and associatively, while proceeding systematically and playfully. According to Kerkermeier, the direct, physical and aesthetic confrontation with the urban present and its impositions, also through the processing of found materials, brings a lot of energy to the artistic procedure. This also applies to her current modified advertising tarpaulins, or the photomontages oscillating between abstraction and representationalism, created with her own photos of situations, things and textures from the urban environment, all condensed into new content.

Isabel Kerkermeier (b. 1963) studied at the Stuttgart Art Academy between 1983 and 1991. In 1988 and 1990 she received the Academy Prize for sculpture. She has held several international exhibitions and received scholarships (e. g. New York and Paris). Both in 2005 and 2023 she received the scholarship of the Stiftung Kunstfonds. Her works can be found in galleries and collections such as the Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt and many private collections in Germany and abroad. Kerkermeier lives and works in Berlin.