Studying Elsbeth Baumann Melmer’s paintings, one gets the impression of being in front of a wall from which the images emerge as if generated by the passage of time, by the action of days. On the one hand, it consumes and corrodes things, while on the other hand, it reveals precisely by erasing the external aspects, their hidden essence. Human figures, glimpses of cities or natural landscapes on the canvas seem graffitied rather than painted. By scratching the layers of color, the superfluous is removed; the image hidden within is freed - similar to how the shapes created by the artist when sculpting stone. The basic idea common to both is that the material in Elsbeth Baumann Melmer’s work – whether color layered on the canvas or marble to be sculpted – contains a hidden core, a shape/image rendered visible by the artist as a result of removing the surface layer that confines it. This is how the form/image takes on the character of a “revelation”, of something secret that manifests itself thanks to the artist’s intervention. For this reason, especially in painting, Elsbeth Baumann Melmer uses the technique of the “unfinished”, of the figure or form just sketched, to allow the observer’s imagination to complete what the artist has deliberately left unfinished. Instead, the sculptures move between perfectly smooth shapes. The detail is brought to an extreme finish with other rough, simplified volumes, thus confirming a creative process based on Elsbeth Baumann Melmer’s constant dialogue with the material, its hidden “secrets”, and various attributes.
[Daniela Pronesti']