About Me

Sonja Heller

The aesthetics in the everyday

Combining writing and art and merging the two into a single unit was an issue early on.

In the beginning I dealt with poetry.

Today I am supplementing the typographic portraits with my short literary texts.

»I love my lost word.

It's at home in the sky«

Through my workI try to look behind a surface of rituals and habits, of adaptation and deception. For years, I have been following the theme in my series »Cocoon«, but it is actually reflected everywhere.

For the implementation, I use my own texts and various image materials, which I prefer to combine in an object-like implementation on several image layers.

My lyrics reflect moments or long complex stories, like the first page of a novel that is never finished - leaving questions unanswered.

The pictorial material from illustrations and photographs corresponds with the text in a form that can remove every element of its identity and merge it into a new expression.

Some of my works have an anamorphic approach to it, and this construction of image and typography over several levels requires a change of position of the observer, before the actual statement opens.

Photography for me is almost the relaxation of the complex. With her, I embark on a search for the aesthetics of everyday life.

However, I love imaging processes of all kinds - such as scanning. However, this is also a complex and time-consuming process that arises conceptually and without spontaneity.

Herein lies the peculiarity of my work: the complexity of the theme is reflected in the implementation, which, however, seems to be superficially playful. The multi-layered objects animate the viewer to explore the narrative work and discover hidden things in it.

»It was very different. It was a long time ago.

And it was not funny. Not at all.«

From »Mr. King laughed«

Urs Honegger interprets the basic aspects of modern visual poetry as »the explication of spatiality and visuality, the intermediality and the conception of an active reader as co-producer« in »Word and Image in Visual Poetry of the 20th Century«. All of this applies to my work, except that its intermediality is not the "virtual space of the computer", but the "conceptual fusion" of Dick Higgins (»Horizons: The Poetics and Theory of the Intermedia«) by means of modern artistic Materials and techniques.

VITA

* 1968

Study object design (o.A.)

Apprenticeship as Information Graphic Designer and Design Assistant for Graphic Design.

Co-founder of the Mendener artist group »Freudenhaus« (2004 - 2010), with producer's showroom (2004 - 2006)

Genre:

Literature

Graphics

Object art

Photography

Exhibitions:

»Wasser», Fröndenberg, 2021 G

Vom Innen und vom Außen«, Stdtische Galerie Torhaus Dortmund, 2021 E

Art Fair Brüssel, Brüssel 2021

Galerie Art Room »Jubiläumsausstellung«, Düsseldorf 2020 G

BIG gallery »Draußen«, Dortmund 2020 G

BBK, BIG gallery, Dortmund 2019

Galerie Art Isotope, Burg Wertheim 2019

BBK, Small Galleries, Dortmund 2019

BBK, BIG gallery, Dortmund 2016

Grafik aus Dortmund, 2016

BBK exhibition of the year, BIG gallery, Dortmund 2015

Gallery Schöber, ArtSpanner 2nd Edition, Dortmund 2013

2nd Ruhrbiennale, Dortmund 2012

Open studio Hagen Haspe, 2012

Exhibition with Nuri Iraq, Hagen 2011

Art Occupee, Menden 2011

Nicolai House, Unna 2009

Cafe Real, 2009

Gallery Schöber, Art Spanner, Dortmund 2007

BurgART, Lüdinghausen 2006

KunstQuadrate, Essen 2006

Cafe Echt, Menden 2006

Spring Salon Young Art, Bad Honnef 2006

BurgART, Lüdinghausen 2005

Art Sunday, Kamen 2005

Various exhibitions in the showroom Freudenhaus, Menden 2004-2006

IHK, Dortmund 2004

Vivere Living Art, Unna 2004

Sitzkunst, project by Schöner Wohnen / immcologne. Sponsor Microsoft Germany

Various group exhibitions of the Art Club Mendener Bauhütte, 1996 - 2003

Catalogs / Publications:

• Exhibition catalog, 2nd Ruhrbiennale 2012

• TV, 4-minute WDR contribution to performance

"Art Occupee", 2011

• Exhibition catalog, Art Squares 2006

• Radio conversation with Düsseldorf gallery owner Jutta Bengelsträter, 2005

• Exhibition catalog, Sitzkunst project 2003