For the first time, an artist symposium will take place in Altomünster from August 8th to 13th, where you can watch four internationally renowned artists at work. One of them is the Munich-based painter Ingrid Floss. She completed her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich as a master student and won several scholarships and prizes, including the Bavarian Culture Promotion Prize in 2006. Many large and well-known exhibitions have taken her beyond Germany to China, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Her works can be found primarily in private collections, but also in museums in China, in the Bavarian State Collections in Munich, the Allianz Art Collection and also in galleries and museums in Dachau. Her central theme is the color itself: Quote from the artist: “Colors are delicious!”
SZ: Ms. Floss, what attracts an artist who exhibits internationally to the small Upper Bavarian town of Altomünster?
Ingrid Floss: I don’t know Altomünster, but I’m really looking forward to it. In recent years – also because of the corona pandemic – there has hardly been any exchange between the artists, which is totally missing at the moment. I don’t even know the other participants, I only knew Bernd Schwarting from Berlin. I really liked his idea of getting together again, so I spontaneously accepted. I find it very appropriate that you can paint in the monastery in Altomünster, because as artists we always work in such a withdrawn and concentrated way, each one on his own. And now the four of us are concentrated. I think that’s a great thing.
Pictures like music: paintings by Ingrid Floss.
(Photo: oh)
Do you already know where and at which plant you want to work?
Yes, I have a number of small works with a very reduced palette of earth tones that I would like to continue working on and also start new paintings. I often have trees as a theme, but whether I do something about it also depends on what I find in Altomünster. I heard from Bernd Schwarting that there are interesting architectural structures in the monastery. I could imagine that I take over this for the construction and as a basic structure for my painting.
Most artists are not used to being watched at work. How about you, doesn’t that bother you?
The worst was in Wuhan at the art academy: I had to paint a picture in a few days and all the Chinese students were standing around me, but somehow it worked. And it won’t be that bad in Altomünster, there won’t be that many people there.
What question do you get asked most frequently as an artist? And what do you answer then?
When the picture is finished is a very common question. I would answer like this: When everything comes together spatially equally as a harmonious unit, when nothing falls off and nothing falls out. Because I work abstractly, people often want to know what the picture represents. I often answer with the composition of classical music or jazz, which is also free of narrative content. It’s all about hearing, and my painting is all about seeing. We always want to understand everything immediately and put it into categories, but my pictures should reach the viewer on a different level than in everyday life: on an emotional level. For me, color is a beautiful means of expression.