Elisabeth Sonneck: Berlin | Ritardando - In Color

Ritardando is a musical term meaning a gradual decrease in speed. A sense of slowing down describes Sonneck’s considered and meticulous processes, facilitating her exploration into the physical relations of form and color in space.

Sonneck’s practice is a dialogue between the intrinsic properties of her materials and situational elements of space, light, environment, and audience. Her paper installations—often standing upright in a scroll, rolled across the floor, or suspended and unfurling from a height—are a subtle manipulation of the material, guiding it into new and unique forms while allowing its weight, texture, and material tension to behave in organic ways. 

On the paper and canvas surfaces, layers of paint interact and nuanced color relations play out in rhythmic repetition. “The fundamental fact of color,” says Sonneck, is that “color can never be exactly defined, named or remembered.” Color and form, and our relation to them, are redefined by each new context.