Nachtpflanze schwarz
Elvira Bach

Elvira Bach’s images always look recent and fresh. Critics have tried to categorize her as part of the “Junge Wilde” movement along with the likes of Jörg Immendorff which, while not entirely accurate for the artist herself, is certainly true of her work. Elvira Bach’s work can be considered an prototype of pointedly female art. She almost exclusively paints women in all kinds of situations and moods, and strikingly contrives attributes like hearts and crosses that aim to make the image readable for the observer. Her application of paint—mostly raw and flat—might look crude, but it follows a maxim that the artist has adhered to since she took part in documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany in 1982: “Superficiality from profundity”. Bach’s graphics, paintings and sculptures are not superficial conceptions and nor should they be read as such. Instead, the artist makes it easy to access her works so that the observer can delve as deep as possible into the meaning of her art. That which is obvious is represented very evidently in order to immediately start a dialog. Elvira Bach’s pictures and sculptures therefore open up entrances without getting lost in multiple layers of meaning. It is also worth noting that Elvira Bach has been an archetype for feminist art and artists worldwide since the early 1980s, having been able to change the way in which female artists’ work is viewed,...