EMILY WEINER
TIME AND TIDE

KÖNIG GALERIE
27 APRIL – 23 JUNE 2024

KÖNIG GALERIE is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by US American artist, Emily Weiner, her first with the gallery. Opening on Gallery Weekend Berlin, TIME AND TIDE consists of 11 oil-on-linen works, each with a unique, handmade frame. The subjects of Weiner’s paintings deal with both historical and fictional characters as interpreted through a feminist lens, as well as symbolic imagery culled from the imagination of a collective unconscious.

After having studied in New York, the city from which she hails, Weiner moved her studio to Nashville, Tennessee in 2018, where she continues to expand upon her interests in topics related to art history, comedic theater, diasporic Jewish culture, and symbolism, along with many others. Each of the 11 works included in TIME AND TIDE is dedicated to a particular figure or formal element, for example: Pierrot from the Commedia dell’arte (PIERROT), Sappho (HARLEQUIN), the golden spiral (NEBULA), and a Rubin’s vase which can be seen as both a vase or two faces (PARADOX). While Weiner’s choice of subject matter is personal, she endeavors to translate her concerns into a language that is more universally understood, evidenced by her recourse to foundational geometric elements and symbols in her paintings.

Weiner is also motivated by a desire to shift the hierarchies of artistic labor, giving equal voice to activities historically considered “craft” or “women’s work.” As such, Weiner builds ceramic frames for some of her canvases, providing multiple modes of aesthetic engagement, from the tactile to the visual. The aspect of performance is central to the works in TIME AND TIDE, which refers simultaneously to the fictional characters from historical theatre and Weiner’s own actions as she paints and composes. Rather than offering a singular (read: masculinist) perspective on a given theme, Weiner proposes a multiplicity of possible interactions with her work, much like an actor who exists both as a body and a vehicle for a masked, fictional self. Within this field of various performances of a given identity, comedy plays a central role, itself a complex governed by diverse strategies, for the comedic is both a means of entertainment and a mechanism for survival.

TIME AND TIDE offers a focused presentation of Weiner’s unique cosmos, putting her activities as painter and ceramicist on full display. The perspective that Weiner shares in her paintings is at once complex and straightforward, a visual reality that appeals to multiple senses and states of being. This reflects the manner in which her works were created and speaks to the possibilities that exist in their modes of communication, providing a truly unique encounter on the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024.