Dynamic painting between jazz and color
"Herschberger seeks to create resonances through her painterly expression: she references the seasons and even specific times of day, as well as the presence of silence or the noise and clamor drifting in from the street. These and other impressions are reflected in her use of color, color combinations, composition, and the structural arrangement of the image. At times, her motifs appear gestural and impulsive; at others, they are characterized by a calm handling of surface or depth and a highly restrained palette—only to shift, elsewhere, into a state of lively movement and eruptive energy." Hartwig Knack – Curator and Art Historian / 2024 – Text for the exhibition at Galerie im Turm, Baden
Artist Statement
My works emerge from moments of quiet concentration as well as from phases of pulsating vitality that coalesce into gestures on the canvas. Music has accompanied this process for many years; as a former jazz singer, it continues to shape the rhythm, dynamics, and energetic quality of my painting to this day.
In the creative process, my body acts as an instrument, the work is created in a state of "flow", almost like in a trance. I work with fast-drying acrylic paints, on several canvases in parallel, I often layer colors and accentuate them with chalk to create complex textures and layers. The titles are created after completion of the work, they are the end for me.
To read: Interview with Les Nouveaux Riches (2024).
texts on art
Roland Puschitz – Curator & Galleryman
"The virtuoso play with delicate surfaces, powerful stroke and targeted accents on pastel chalk creates plays on the canvas. The compositions in the pictures by Monika Herschberger are pure poetry through colors. Works radiate and blend in with the viewer's pure harmony, their orchestras are brushes, spatulas and oil chalks, the colors pink, turquoise, red, green, yellow and gray their music.