The artist Sibylla Dumke, who studied in Munich with Sean Scully and Nikolaus Lang, says about her artwork: “I like to combine the rest of nature and the rest of what humans leave behind, to see that as one thing. Because we are nature but we are also cultivated, sophisticated. We are artificial in the way that we construct our world. I am a product of both. So this is actually just kind of a manifestation for what I am.”
In the artwork o.T. (28.6., Boppstrasse, Berlin), 2013, a simple twig provides the primary subject, whilst the title references the place where the twig was found. The bark of the twig was painstakingly sanded to produce a smooth surface, which was then decorated with brush and ink. As a sculpture, leaning against the wall or hanging from the ceiling, the twig becomes an essential drawing within the space. Through the artist’s minimal interventions, the found object loses part of its identity as a natural object. In return, its abstract sign qualities – its ‘certain something’ – receive a greater emphasis. In other artworks, Dumke goes a step further, combining natural found objects with artifacts from a civilized context such as plastic spoons or reflectors.
Sibylla Dumke
o.T. (28.6., Boppstr., Berlin), 2013
