Lisa Wölfel

Lisa Wölfel (*1988 in Schweinfurt) lives and works in Duisburg, Leipzig and Zeitz. From 2009 to
2017, she studied Free Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg under Prof. Thomas
Hartmann and was appointed his master student in 2015. Her artistic practice has received
numerous awards and scholarships, including the SI Art Award for Female Artists, the Audience
Award of the 6th Triennial for Contemporary Art at Kunsthalle Schweinfurt, the Award of the
Dresden State Art Collections, and scholarships from the City of Duisburg and the Kunststiftung
Sachsen-Anhalt 2027. Her work has been presented in numerous institutional exhibitions in
Germany and abroad, including at Kunsthalle Schweinfurt, Kunstvilla Nürnberg, Diocesan Museum Bamberg, Robert Koepke Museum Schwalenberg, Hui Art Museum Wuxi (CHN), Nature & Harmony Art Museum Guangzhou(CHN), and Museum Skopje(MKD). She has also participated in international art fairs in Hong Kong and Beijing. Her works are held in public and private collections across Europe and Asia.

Lisa Wölfel’s work moves between intuition and control. Her works emerge from an open,
experimental process in which she repeatedly charges, reduces, empties and reworks an image until it reaches a point where it conveys what she wants to see. As she puts it: “A good painting should be about to burst, without quite exploding.”
Starting from a fragile framework of charcoal, ink or pastel, she gradually develops her figures
through a broad spectrum of colour, ranging from naturalistic to estranged. Her aim is not to create realistic representations, but to explore inner states, questions of existence, and the tensions between human beings, nature and society. Direct gazes, expressive gestures and movement, as well as the physical presence of her figures, are central to her approach.
Wölfel works across media and embraces experimentation, allowing drawing, painting and
sculptural elements to overlap. Everyday observations and encounters with people can also become part of her artistic process. For her, a work is complete when it fulfils what her vision expects while still having the power to surprise her when she encounters it again.

For the “Duisburg Diaries”, Lisa Wölfel draws at least one portrait from memory every day,
combining the felt atmosphere and emotions she absorbs from her surroundings in Duisburg and the mood of each day. She works spontaneously with charcoal and watercolour, always beginning
without knowing where the process will lead. Her visual memory allows her to translate these
feelings directly into images. Working intuitively and in constant motion, she often develops several ideas simultaneously. The project is characterised by an “honesty in the process”: allowing the motifs to emerge naturally rather than imposing a predetermined result. In contrast to her large-scale works, the “Duisburg Diaries” are created in a smaller format, capturing an immediate and personal response to the city.