Inner and Outer Landscapes

In her series Other Reveries, created in the mid-1990s and the following decades, Margot Bergman (*1934) uses existing paintings as her pictorial support and source of inspiration. By means of over-painting, the artist generates her own pictorial ideas on paintings acquired at flea markets, regarding herself as a silent collaborator with the unknown authors. The newly created works interweave landscapes, hunting scenes and still lifes with portraits that are predominantly of women. The sometimes humorous, sometimes melancholic results invite the viewer to look through the face of the person portrayed to a generic landscape, a process that facilitates a different reading. In the act of over-painting, different levels emerge in relation to the image: the viewer’s perspective resembles a glance over the shoulder, apprehending the subjective siting of the artist in the landscapes of the other. The question of the relation between identity and territories, between Inner and Outer Landscapes, seems to be posed almost literally here by means of painting and collage. For over 60 years, the self-taught Chicago-based artist has been working in the media of painting, collage and sculpture.

In cooperation with Museum Folkwang, Essen and Museum Langmatt, Baden (CH)