ALICE EIKELPOTH
Lives and works in Germany and United Kingdom
Biography
Born in 1982 to a croatian mother and a german father, Alice Eikelpoth is from Duesseldorf, Germany.
Coming from a family of photographers, she has studied Fine Art Painting at University of Brighton and recently successfully finished her MA Fine Art at Wimbledon College of art.
Images, pictures, fragments and pieces of memories are a vital part of her work and forms an intense self-expression which is both vulnerable and demanding.The use of paper, collage and photocopies add a raw, immediate quality to the work.
She continuously challenges herself to expose previously uncharted realms of her psyche through her painting.
The compositions can be viewed as sinister, comical, or can take on many other interpretations.
They are a constant provocation demanding that the viewer confront their own dark sides. Her work is as much a constant dialogue she holds with herself as it is a response to the world she inhabits.
Artist statement
In principle almost all her works can be described as collages of sorts, not only those that are actually made with paper, scissors and glue.
Using and reusing found elements and concepts, and transforming them into another context in order to create something new, is something that runs through all her work, even if the principle manifests itself in all manner of ways.
The starting point for her work is drawn from personal experiences, memories and thoughts.
She uses found images and other graphic material, then uses collage to make new compositions.
She grew up with photographers around her as a child, so this medium holds a high emotional significance.
These images could be cut outs from a fashion or entertainment magazines or even a scrap of paper she finds on the street.
What is important to her is the connection she has to the image. Due to the autobiographical and psychological nature of her work, these images more than often manifest themselves as figures of authority.
She is interested in the fragmentation and abstraction of these figures of power. The faces are not important and she obliterates these figures in the working process, paints over them, or cuts and pastes them into new figures. This de-construction helps her to rationalise these forms and acts as a conduit to help her with her own feelings and insecurities.
There is also a sense of absurdity in all the collages, which can be humorous in their brutality at times, men without arms or legs, or heads cut off.
The subconcious as a subject, is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition.