Pareidolia: Judith Grassl, Luis Zimmermann

Delicate fabrics or translucent layers of paint drift across the canvas, like colored shadows of what once was. Distant memories or forgotten dreams slip all too easily from the grasp of the mind seeking clarity—seemingly within reach, yet impossible to hold. They dissolve the moment thought tries to outline them more precisely. Contours that were once sharp blur, the image loses its certainty. Other memories press in, overlapping, merging and separating at once. Sometimes all that remains in this mental twilight is a single color, a shape, a taste, or a feeling—something clear, solid, unmistakable. It insists on itself, lingers, and returns when least expected. Often, it is the smallest, most inconspicuous details that remain tangible in memory: the bite of an apple, the smell of saltwater, saffron yellow—remembrances that cast green, gray, and red shadows upon the image beneath.

Working with the principle of collage, Judith Grassl and Luis Zimmermann draw from their personal archives of material, extracting fragments from their original contexts and arranging them anew. Grassl uses art-historical references alongside cutouts from newspapers and photographs. Zimmermann turns to a growing archive of family photographs and his own images. His motifs emerge from intimate surroundings, yet at times take on broader sociopolitical resonance—when, for instance, fragments of demonstrations flicker through. Digital collages serve as the starting point for his textile prints, which he then cuts apart, reassembling the pieces on canvas. Grassl, on the other hand, transforms her collages and drawings into three-dimensional, showcase-like paper models, photographs them, and brings them back into painterly surfaces. Both artists deconstruct their material with scissors or scalpel, leaving at times only a silhouette or a structure behind. 

Text: Julia Stellmann