jeweler’s silk. That’s the name of the paper that Ruth Effer has been working on artistically for the past 40 years. But what sounds so classy is actually a common packaging material: Despite its stability, the white, wafer-thin paper can be flexibly shaped, so that even small, filigree objects can be wrapped in it without any problems. But Effer uses jeweler’s silk in a different way. Thanks to a coincidence, she started experimenting with it while she was still studying – and over the course of time she developed her very own artistic technique. “But I still haven’t completely penetrated the topic,” she says – without a hint of regret.
However: You can now marvel at how far Ruth Effer has come with jeweller’s silk in the gallery of the Ebersberger Kunstverein. There the artist is showing a large selection of her paper works from Friday, September 9th. And these are not only magical in their appearance, but also give an insight into the remarkable versatility of this inconspicuous material. At least when it’s in Effer’s hands. You can see large and small, colored and monochrome, two- and three-dimensional. Some works consist only of paper, which is trickily held on the wall with a magnet, others are applied to wood or canvas. “I always like to break new ground, simply to avoid automatisms,” says the artist.
The largest picture in the exhibition is five meters long.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Effer always works on the ground. She wets the paper webs, layers them, adds paste and weaves the whole thing into a unit. Her creative process is a sensitive, difficult, almost ritual material processing in the form of soaking, dyeing, gluing, folding, fulling and layers, she explains. The artist also mixes different techniques, combining the fine paper with painting, drawing and collage elements. Sensitive, relief-like compositions, mostly in pastel shades, are created in an elaborate and at the same time playful manner.
The most important source of inspiration for Ruth Effer is nature. Although the native of Mönchengladbach lives in Munich, she has been working in a studio on a farm in Frauenneuharting for about four years. “That’s my lottery win,” she says of this refuge, which not only offers a lot of space, but also lively exchange with other artists. In addition, Effer can roam from Hagenberg through forests, meadows and fields. There she uses photography and drawing to explore the diverse forms of nature, such as the structures of tree bark, lichens, mosses or the light falling through foliage. With the magnifying glass, she zooms into an ever more abstract microcosm.
Concrete and yet imaginary: Ruth Effer transforms what she has seen into free compositions.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
This constantly growing collection of “traces” from nature then forms a rich basis for further work in the studio. However, Effer is less concerned with a depiction of what has previously been seen than with a free use of shapes and colors. Simultaneously concrete and imaginary, her art is “a dialogue between outside and inside,” she says. And in fact, poetic landscapes are created under their hands, which trigger all sorts of associations. One imagines oneself between trees or at lakes, thinks to discover leaves, grass, blossoms and bark. A frequently recurring shape is the circle or the oval – “that always works,” says Effer and laughs. “Meandering, circling, I kind of like that.”
The title of the exhibition in the old distillery also follows this idea, it is “Bene Factum”, which simply means “well done”, or “good deed”, even “benevolence”. Because art doesn’t have to be a struggle, explains Effer, in fact, now that she’s in her late 50s, she’s allowing herself “to pursue what’s good for me.” And she’s not afraid to show off her personal preferences, her individual design language. She also hopes, quite rightly, that her works will trigger feelings of balance, cheerfulness and joy in the viewer – that they will also be a blessing for him.
“Meandering and circling, I kind of like that,” says Ruth Effer.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Effer studied art in Berlin, Münster and Munich. Today she teaches herself at the academy in the state capital and is an art therapist, yoga and meditation teacher. The exhibits in the Ebersberg exhibition all come from the past four years, so they are comparatively new – and yet they also allow a look back.
Effer has recently begun to rework older, already finished works. “The topic of sustainability has become much more relevant for me,” she explains. That’s why she doesn’t want to increase her own “artistic mass” anymore, but instead wants to develop an increasingly resource-saving way of working. The old becomes a rich breeding ground for the new, it is not only preserved energetically, but also partially visibly. This adds an important biographical aspect to sustainability: Effer looks back and at the same time condenses her oeuvre. “It’s a very exciting, meaningful thing.”
From old to new: There are about five years between the strip with the circles and its frame.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Ruth Effer, on the other hand, was extravagant recently in an experiment intended to explore the possibilities of her studio: “What is the maximum format that the floor and my body dimensions allow?” The result is an impressive panorama five meters long and 2.20 meters wide. “But keeping such a huge format under control is of course exhausting,” admits the artist. That’s why she likes to work on a smaller scale from time to time.
Sometimes it is also found objects from nature that Effer uses as a motif. She collects hollyhocks, grass pods or silver coins, presses them and then arranges them on a paper bed. Particularly unusual: those pictures in which the threads of corn cobs are processed, which here become delicate, ghostly dancing figures.
It is probably only at second glance that one recognizes that these are the threads of corn cobs.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
In the field of smaller works, Effer has also developed a new process that allows sculptural objects to be created from the remains of the large formats. “The idea actually came to me in a dream.” Again, paper is soaked, colored, and mixed with binder, but the layering now occurs in a kind of frame, such as a flat wooden box. And it happens under pressure. Effer presses hundreds of leaves together so that the water escapes and a shape is created. The paper thickens, deepens or rises, forms gaps or flakes. Lots of exciting shapes that then dry and become stable.
charred? No, just the opposite. This layering was created with a lot of water and pressure.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Ruth Effer created this object using a thick forked branch.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Whoever looks at this exhibition by the Ebersberger Kunstverein will in all probability soon be enraptured by this fine art. You will be amazed at what can be done with this everyday jeweler’s silk. And he will probably also be very curious to see where the artist Ruth Effern will go in the future.
Exhibition “Bene Factum” by Ruth Effer in the old distillery of the Ebersberger Kunstverein in the Klosterbauhof, vernissage on Friday, September 9th at 7 p.m., finissage with artist talk on Sunday, October 2nd at 11 a.m.