Erased drawing/photographs and concept: Katrin Laade

Poem and musical setting: Lilliana Matthews

“A moon made of ice” is an artistic collaboration between Katrin Laade and Lilliana Matthews.

Katrin Laade created a 120 x 150 cm graphite drawing on paper, based on a photographic model—a polar landscape—and traced it as realistically as possible. In conjunction with the poem, the moon, which does not appear in the photographic model, was added. The drawing was then erased as far as possible in 81 steps, with each individual version of the erased drawing captured photographically. What remains in the end is a nearly white sheet of paper, on which traces of the original drawing can be seen—like traces of memory, they cannot be completely erased.

81 photo sequences. Lilliana Matthews' poem accompanies and underscores the disappearance of the drawing in context. The drawing's many stages thus exist only digitally, in 81 photo sequences, and in memory.

The disappearance of the landscape and the ice floes can be seen in Apheum's sequence of 81 photos, with the poem being underscored in the subtext.

“A moon made of ice” can be read as a commentary on climate change, but also as a reflection on remembering and forgetting.

Images by Katrin Laade

Katrin Laade is a painter and illustrator. She uses not only brushes and pencils, but also scissors, a sewing machine, and an eraser.

Katrin Laade uses procedural methods; she has imposed them on herself, so to speak, in order to generate an interplay between control and chance or play.

Her pictures consist of many layers, as do her drawings, although the latter are erased at the end and assembled into an animation.
At first they appear almost white, but upon closer inspection the traces of the original drawing are quite clearly visible.

The drawings (and the paintings as underlying projections) address socially relevant topics, such as climate change and its consequences.

As for the painting, the most exciting moment is the moment when the many layers of adhesive are peeled off. A large part of painting is done blindly, so to speak: Is the picture successful? Are the proportions, the structure, the colors right? Has the tape left too much on or removed too much? Good paintings ultimately prove to be unpredictable.

In the drawings presented here, snow and ice landscapes have been erased, a reference to climate change, the disappearance of nature as we know it, but also a reflection on remembering and forgetting.

Katrin Laade/Angelika Trojnarski

Katrin Laade

1964  Born in Stuttgart

1983 – 88 State Art Academy Düsseldorf, studied with Jan Dibbets, David Rabinowitsch

1988 – 90 De Ateliers, Postgraduate Studies (Masters), Haarlem, NL, Scholarship NL and EU

1990 – 96 werkbeurs, basicbeurs (FvBK scholarships)

1988 – 95 lives and works in Amsterdam, NL

1995 – now lives and works in Düsseldorf

1999 Residency scholarship in Loviisa, Finland

2008 – 2012 Lecturer in painting, Folkwang University

2004 - 2020 Lecturer in Painting, University of Duisburg-Essen

2018 Member of the producer gallery plan.d, Düsseldorf

2020 Member of the German Artists' Association

2020/21/22 “Let's go”, project grant from the MKW, NRW

2022 Restart Culture, Kunstfonds Bonn

2023/ 2024 Lecturer in Painting, graduate program, Alfred University/ Alfred USA/ Dependance Düsseldorf

Since 1991 numerous exhibitions at home and abroad

2025 Catalogue presentation and exhibition Kunstverein Leverkusen (EA), "Blurred Relations", Kunstverein Hohenlohe, (GA), "Painting in Translation"
Alfred University, Alfred, USA, (GA)
"klein klein", West German Artists' Association, Märkisches Museum Witten (GA)

2024 “Not far”, Photo Gallery Vienna, Vienna, A (GA), 30 JA, Anniversary Salzmannbau,
in the rooms of the Storage Museum, Düsseldorf, (GA), anniversary exhibition plan.d.,
Düsseldorf (GA), “Darkroom”, K101, Cologne, (EA), “Red Blue Blue”, Gallery
Art Space 21, Bonn,

2023 Galerie Kunstraum 21, Bonn “Illuminating”, (EA), “Mikado”, Künstlerbund Tübingen (EA/GA), “Node”, Red Head Gallery, Toronto (GA), “shaped canvas”, Freiraum, Düsseldorf, (EA), “Six”, Galerie Kunstraum 21, Bonn (GA)

2022 Galerie Kunstraum 21, "DAGEWESEN" (GA), "Stoffwechsel", Galleria Huuto, Finland (GA), "Traces", Galerie Martin Leyer-Pritzkow, (EA), "Die Grosse", museum kunstpalast Düsseldorf, "Sechs", Galerie Kunstraum 21, Bonn (GA)

2021 “temporary”/ “fleeting world”, producer gallery plan.d., Düsseldorf (EA),

2020 “latently present”, Künstlerloge Ratingen (EA)

2019 “damaged order”, Galerie Reinhold Maas, Reutlingen (EA),

2018 “Big Yellow”, Galerie Peripherie, Tübingen (EA), foreign matter(s), CASO, Osaka, Japan (GA)

2017 “space 42”, Robert Koepke House, Schwalenberg (GA),

2014 “from here until now”, Kunstraum Düsseldorf, (GA), 2011 “four show pictures”, WWU, Project space Philara, Düsseldorf (GA),

2008 “Trend Walls”, Kunstraum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (EA/GA), “unstaged”, arti et amititiae, Amsterdam, NL (GA)

2005 “glowing melon”, Kulturforum Schlossmeierhof, Gallery Volker Marschall, D'dorf, (EA)

2001 “Free Elections Fair”, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden (GA),

1997 Galerie Louise de Haan, Haarlem, NL (EA)

1999 + 1996 Galerie Wolfram Bach, Düsseldorf (EA)

1991 + 1993, W 139, Amsterdam, NL (GA)