Light and fragile, the work of Christiane Löhr renders the complexity and abundance of the elements it is made from with “delicacy”. The painstaking construction, the numerous tiny elements used, the complex geometric composition of the forms, result in a surprising and precious simplicity manifested through delicacy, fragility and lightness. The essence of Christiance Löhr’s work may be appreciated by observing everything, including the most microscopic detail, of its crafting, which succeeds in reaching an aesthetic synthesis that is very beautiful yet incredibly light, almost evanescent, to the eye. The expressive force of these works lies precisely in the way they surprise, leaving one breathless, inspiring a kind of deferential enchantment and respect for the intangible fragility to which it owes its substance.
Thistle seeds, dandelions, ivy stems, horsehair: these are the elements used to create true micro-architectures, sustained by rigorous and geometric precision, where nothing is superfluous and everything subject to rules that seem to be dictated by Nature, even if Nature is merely a source of inspiration, a starting point on which basis to build unexpected compositions that are half-way between botanical and architectural. Christiane Löhr’s micro-architectures house essential microcosms, perfect in their precision, feather-light containers whose order and equilibrium are extremely precarious and yet lasting in time. Christiane Löhr captures the ephemeral sense of Nature, the frailty of its elements, challenging its physical laws, assembling the seeds in unusual forms, and the rules of time by fixing those very elements in immobile and lasting structures. To the organic materials which form the sculptures, the artist adds an analytical level of construction, more architectural than sculptural, which eventually superimposes and emphasizes the scientific and mathematic aspect of the artistic invention. What emerges is therefore a kind of scientific, rigorous investigation, where the geometric rule becomes instrument, visual and expressive means of an immateriality or spirituality that is implicit, invisible but nevertheless perceptible.
The research at this point becomes evident: simplicity becomes a means of investigation aimed at identifying something which is well beyond what appears to the eye, which uses fragility to suggest to the ear and the senses a latent, only just whispered message, a search for the essence of things, for an intrinsic Nature which is concealed behind the complex and articulated form, which brings order to beauty and rules the world. “Perhaps I am in search of what keeps the world together” declares the artist: delicacy is a condition, an emotional state, and simplicity a goal we reach, as Costantin Brancusi taught, “in spite of ourselves, as we approach the real sense of things”.
