DORIS ERNST
Born 1966 in Steinfurt, Germany, Lives and works in London, Berlin and Shanghai.
Doris is a self-taught artist. Her intuition and creativity are an expression of her living, traveling and working in various cities around the world like New York, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Addis Abeba, New Delhi, Shanghai and Japan. These different cultures, people, societies, and their art forms have influenced her as well as the friendship with many artists in these countries. She has participated in a several gallery as well as museum exhibitions in Shanghai where she lived for 5 years before just moving to London in August 2020.
Doris´ work has been influenced very strongly by her experiences living in mega cities with the density, noise and speed in contrast to nature, calmness and heritage. Her path towards making her own art started with the strong desire to finding herself again after long years of being a full time working mother of 3 children-working in the clearly structured field of international law, government and in humanitarian assistance which included visiting Haiti after the earthquake as well as refugee camps in Africa and Syria. She was also looking for a way to cope with the experience of joy and disappointment in her personal life as well as sorrow over the death of loved ones. All of this combined with global politics, deteriorating environmental problems, divisions in societies as well as the speed of developments in the age of internet and artificial intelligence brought her to the point where she needed a means of expression to get the constantly spinning thoughts out of her head - finding a blance between chaos and order.
Her artistic work is dominated by the motto “Trying to make sense”. Which includes the wish for finding hope and claritiy in a complex world.
Doris loves to work with spatulas instead of brushes. Applying paint in this manner always includes an element of randomness and surprise which again is a similarity to life where perfection can hardly ever be achieved or planned. The apparent order of the stripes and the grids in her works is however not regular. The stripe as a symbol of routine are never the same and in this representing individuality. Overlaying layers show the multitude of different influences we face in our life.
Her work also includes a series of works on paper called “fading”. Which deals with the issue of not losing yourself, your integrity, your values and personality under the constant outside pressure.
Another series of works including a collection of found objects and markings on crushed/crumbled paper as well as a series of prints made with broken pieces of tiles from demolished Chinese Shikumen houses that deals with the question of transience and vulnerability.
Doris believes that the current situation /crisis clearly shows that rationality is (at least not alone/ by itself) the solution. Humanness, emotions, caring for each other, empathy, tolerance, compassion and love are needed as well. Struggling and standing together while sharing our concerns and thoughts will give us the hope we need to find a brighter tomorrow in the chaos of our time.
For Doris, sharing her thoughts through art became her way of dialogue.
Solo / Two-person Exhibitions
2020 CHAOS, Dialogue Exhibition with Sun Yao, COSPACE Gallery M50, Shanghai/China
2020 Lost and Found, Solo exhibition, Leo Gallery, Shanghai/China
2019 Look and See, Dialogue exhibition with Songwen Sun-von Berg, Space Gallery, Shanghai/ China
Group Exhibition
2020 Many a little-makes a mickle, Tour exhibition u.a. Art Collection Museum, Shanghai/China
2020 Path to enchanting Seclusion, Group exhibition, Xinjiao Art Museum, Shanghai/China
2019 The Multi-Imagination of Light, Group exhibition, SoArt GalleryM50, Shanghai/China
2018 Hidden Secrets, Group exhibition, Poppy Gallery, Shanghai/China
