Of bodies and traces by Nicole Wendel
Nicole Wendel’s studio is on the outskirts of Berlin, in an old brick factory building with high, long windows and an even higher and longer chimney. But there's not much sign of factory work anymore – today it’s much quieter here than in the otherwise bustling city. But the real quiet returns only after we have climbed the countless steps to Nicole’s studio. The room is bright and quiet, and that’s certainly also due to Nicole, who radiates warmly and speaks thoughtfully, so that you can listen to her well.
As we look around, we notice that not only the room and Nicole radiate calm, but also something about the large drawings on the walls. While they are often wild and full of movement, they have one thing in common: they are all black and white. And even more: except for a colorful carpet, we discover almost no color in the room! When we ask Nicole why that is, she answers that she sometimes sees and perceives so much that it is then a relief if she doesn’t have to think about colors as well. Then the world becomes a little easier. We don’t let up so quickly and eventually find out that she’s taken a few small pictures in blue before. She says it a bit like it’s still a secret. But she promises to let us know when she does something really colorful. We would like that.
Nicole’s drawings do not show objects or people, but traces of the movements of her body. The first time she thought about traces was when she was still very young: she is left-handed and spent a long time trying out how a stroke changes when she draws it with her left hand or with her right. The stroke then became a trace from which she could tell, even in retrospect, which hand it came from. After all, our body is involved in everything we do.
Meanwhile, Nicole draws not only with her hands. On the wall we see a large work consisting of many footprints. When we ask what this means, Nicole shows us a meditation that involves taking steps forward, backward, and to the side. This allows her to bring good feelings and memories to her and push away those she wants to leave behind. The traces of this meditation, that is, the steps, become visible through countless footprints on the large sheet. In this way she also draws dreams, dances and other movements and thus records short and long periods of time in many layers on one picture.
We would like to know how it feels – and already we are standing in front of a long paper web and feel our body: It makes sounds when we tap it; our skin becomes warm when we rub it; and even when we close our eyes, we can see something. We then paint this without looking, which is not so easy at first, but gradually takes on a wide variety of forms. On top of this we later draw the routes we have taken in the morning, from bed to the studio. The paths are long, cross each other and change as they emerge, because we have to react to each other, avoid each other or climb over each other. In this way, not only our memories but also our encounters and movements become visible. We take our encounter with Nicole home with us, along with our brightly coloured picture, and on our way out we imagine how our steps leave behind coloured traces that will soon snake through the city in long lines.
