New Artist in Residence, Nadine Baldow!
We are very excited to welcome our next EE Studios Artist in Residence, Nadine Baldow! Nadine will be with us as an AiR from March 29th to May 11th, after which she will remain at EE to present a Main Gallery exhibition as well! How exciting!! We can’t wait to see what Nadine gets up to, and to share the culmination of her work with the community later this Spring. Welcome to St. John’s, Nadine!
Work in Progress, Landmarks I at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, 2020
Alive Matter (TOPOPHILIA V)
Landscape Investigation in Newfoundland and Labrador
“Man and his environment are more intimate than a snail and its shell”
(Videl de la Blanche, Principles of Human Geography, 1922)
Nadine Baldow’s practice is informed by the current geological era, known as the Anthropocene where traces of human activity become embedded within planet Earth. Are we still part of nature? Or have humans created a new kind of nature? Perhaps estrangement from nature started with a fence: did the first artificial boundary create a gap between man and nature?
In preparation for her upcoming solo exhibition “Alive Matter (TOPOPHILIA V)” at Eastern Edge, Nadine will focus on the Landscape Investigation of the surrounding environment of the area Newfoundland and Labrador. Structures, that carry a heavy human handprint are layers of value in an altered landscape. In time these forms establish diverse geological strata, each layer betraying the sedimented yet shifting values of the cultural forces that produced them. With these layers, Baldow seeks to gain a deep understanding of the place and the relationship between “nature” and “culture” in this landscape.
Nadine is planning to test a new sculptural concept for her work. Therefore she will combine “dead materials” with “alive materials” – all materials will be of local origin. Dead materials could be artificial man-made industrial materials, such as byproducts of production. Alive materials could be Moss, plants, mushrooms, etc.
TOPOPHILIA is an ongoing series of Landscape Investigations, Baldow started in 2020 in the NorthWest of rural Ireland. Since then, investigating the rural, but culturally impacted, landscapes of Ireland, Slovenia, Lithuania, and Iceland were the starting point for her recent sculptural work.
The artist seeks to continue and deepen this series, to be able to compare certain layers of value in different landscapes – to build an archive of investigations of this changing world, so to speak. With this archive, consisting of the documentation of place, her notes, and the documentation of the site-specific sculpture, she is aiming to articulate the effect of man on the landscape and the friction this creates within our surroundings and within ourselves.
Her residency is linked to her upcoming solo exhibition “Alive Matter – Topophilia V” at Eastern Edge. The exhibition will consist of one sire-specific, space-filling sculpture that stems from this Landscape Investigation. The materials of this sculpture will be a hybrid of “dead materials” and “alive materials” – all materials will be of local origin.
Nadine Baldow (b. 1990, Dresden, Germany) is a visual artist based in Berlin whose work predominately addresses the complex relationship between “culture” and “nature” and their ongoing impact on each other. She is observing this relationship on many different levels and raises questions like: Are we still part of nature? What is “nature” after all? Is the planet, as we have shaped it, the “new nature”?
Baldow completed her studies at the Academy of Fine Art Arts in Dresden as professor Eberhard Bosslet’s master-class student (meisterschülerin), after completing a traditional woodcarving apprenticeship in the Alps.
Since 2020 her site-specific sculptures are informed by landscape investigation. Now, her use of materials is linked to her fieldwork about the environment she is working with. “The presence of certain materials tells a lot about how people are entangled with the place – they are somehow intimate with the landscape they interact with. ” Various solo presentations of her site-specific sculptures came into existence most notably in Ireland (Leitrim Sculpture Centre), Iceland (SIM Gallery), Germany (Public Art Sculpture commissioned by MS Artville), Slovenia (Rezindeca Gornji Grad), and Lithuania (Verpejos Residency).
In addition to her sculptural practice, the artist exposes herself to various situations of friction to challenge her relationship with nature, such as shepherding a freely moving flock or living in a hut in the forest without electricity or running water.
Baldow produced several public space interventions in South Korea, India, Japan, and Germany. Her work has been exhibited in Switzerland, Ireland, Iceland, Lithuania, Slovenia, Malta, Japan, Germany, Poland, Czech, the Netherlands, South Korea, and India. Numerous galleries and museums such as Haus am Lützowplatz Berlin, Kunstmuseum Heidenheim, Urban Nation – Museum for Urban Contemporary Arts Berlin, Valetta Contemporary (Malta), Leitrim Sculpture Centre (Ireland), Halle 14 – Center for Contemporary Arts (Leipzig, Ger- many) have featured Nadine Baldow’s work in the past. She has been represented on several art fairs, such as the Contemporary Art Week Delhi, OSTRALE – the International Exhibition for Contemporary Art in Dresden, and the ArtFair Düsseldorf.
Her work has been exhibited in Switzerland, Ireland, Iceland, Malta, Germany, Poland, Czech, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Slovenia, South Korea, Japan and India.