Events & Projects

After completing her studies in painting at the “University of Applied Arts Vienna” Marie Filippa Janssen directs her visual interest in an applied field of painting to realize her sculptural as well as painterly intentions: Since 2014, the artist has been intensively involved in the conception of a redefinition of tiled stoves. Based on traditional craftsmanship as well as traditional techniques, she developed her so-called Shrouded Furnaces (germ. Tuchöfen). In their individual appearances the Shrouded Furnaces live up to the domestic function in spite of their artistic structure, their sensual flattering shimmer and their silent symbolic appearance. The Shrouded Furnaces – more sculptures than a utility objects – demand from the artist beside plastic and coloristic skills high practical and manual skills. Growing up with the métier of stove making, Marie Filippa Janssen is well familiar with the material and its handling, and thereby involuntarily stimulates the lively reinvention of this profession. The passionate preoccupation with the subtle complexity of the tiled stove, its cultural and societal meaning and history, its twists and turns in traditional legends and literature, and the self-experienced atmospheric impact as well as subliminal mysticism of the covertly activated and warmth radiating body have increased an intertwined theme that continues to fascinate Marie Filippa Janssen. It offers the young artist constant inspiration for experimental as well as bold solutions, so that after obsessive exploration, wondrous creations emerge, that combine functionality and artistic form, which in turn potentiate each other interactively. The presentation at the gallery rauminhalt_harald bichler not only wants to give an insight into the multifaceted context from which the artist develops her Shrouded Furnaces. The process from the first idea to the sketch, the concrete preliminary drawing and the model up to the finished stove will also be presented in the exhibition. Notes and books with recipes for glazes and other materials, construction drawings and floor plans make the work process comprehensible. The exhibition also shows a video work documenting the emergence of a furnace in Kartause Mauerbach near Vienna in poetic images. Two very different Shrouded Furnaces will pose in the room and exemplify the wealth of diversity as well as the characteristic of Marie Filippa Janssen's particulat oeuvre. (Margareta Sandhofer)