Artist: Ina Gerken

When Ina Gerken (b. 1987) sets to work on a new painting, she has no preconceived plan, concept or idea of how the piece should look when it is finished. Working on pure intuition, she strives to look at the unfolding piece with no preconceived notions of where it should end up. Instead, she tries to intuitively discern what it needs, as quickly as possible, so as not to overthink her next move. Thanks to the rapidly drying acrylic paint, she can spontaneously modify the content at will, keeping the process alive and exciting. Gerken describes painting as a dialogue between herself and the canvas. She allows herself to drift and meander into the unknown, until finally the invisible becomes visible. Ultimately, the image takes shape like a creature that evolves out of nothing.

Gerken sees a painting as being simultaneously a snapshot, a frozen moment, and a memory complete with multiple layers, emotional responses and embedded discoveries. Like all things extant, every painting is different: each one is unique in how it was created, how long it took to complete, and how many layers it contains. Each painting plays by its own rules, has its own language and possesses a unique character.

In recent years, Gerken has begun to favor larger formats. She paints large canvases flat on the floor, which enables her to literally get inside the painting. Gerken says that the bigger the painting, the more likely she is to get lost inside it – in a positive sense, because working large makes her more reliant on intuition and feeling.

Ina Gerken is german painter who studied at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA. She lives and works in Dusseldorf, Germany.