Opening: 05.09.2024, 18h
Exhibition: 06.09. - 11.09.2024, 10-13h und 15-19h
Lavoir Vasserot
1, Rue Joseph Quaranta
FR-83990 Saint-Tropez
The artists:
Yo Franklin
Yo Franklin is an experienced German painter who has been exhibiting her work across Europe, Miami, and Tokyo for the past twenty years, establishing an international community of collectors.
Growing up in the 1970s, Yo has been painting since she could hold a brush. Franklin's artistic approach is self-referential and deeply autobiographical, emerging from her innermost self.
After studying art with Professor Rothmann, receiving artistic support from Gunter Sachs, studying art therapy (A.K.T. Munich), and later also interior design, Yo's thematic focus has centered on humanity in the here and now. For her, painting signifies benevolence in every sense, and she often references the Renaissance and the Enlightenment in her works.
While stylistic elements of the Renaissance are not present in Franklin's works, the ideas from that period profoundly influence her, shaping her and forming the foundation of her creative motivation. "Post Tenebras Lux," the light after the darkness, is part of her biography and marks a significant turning point in her life. Art became even more vital, not only sustaining her and her four children but also providing Yo Franklin with strength, confidence, and freedom.
Every person should be able to develop according to their potential. Yo lives and communicates these values, reflecting them in her work. What makes a piece by Franklin special is not just a painting; it is her optimism, joy of life, and immense energy. A work by Yo Franklin accompanies you with positivity and warmth.
Franklin's oeuvre is divided into large-scale abstractions painted with pigments in poppy oil on canvas, typographic art with wordplay in acrylics, minimalist abstractions with gold leaf, and thick, colorful relief works with stripes that Franklin creates from pigments, chalk, and resin. Each painting consists not just of color and canvas and several hours of painting but embodies the true spirit of its creator, the idea of interpreting something new, a profound guiding thought—a subject. It is art.
Jana Dettmer, MODULAR MIXTURES
MODULAR MIXTURES - An installation of colored squares
The artist Jana Dettmer combines individually made colored squares into large-scale compositions in a range of intense hues. The result is a fascinating interplay of individually colored surfaces arranged in a strict order.
The Square Project installation came out about through a complex and multi-layered process. It began with the artist making square paintings in mixed media applied in multiple layers on wood. Rather than selecting colors from a predetermined canon, Dettmer interprets each color intuitively and dynamically.
This is the starting point for the next step, when Dettmer reproduces the painted works by printing them, with a series of fine adjustments, behind 6-millimeter-thick acrylic glass. This process enhances the expressive color motif while creating an impression of depth and glossy surfaces that heighten the overall impact. The acrylic glass squares are then arranged by the artist as elements of abstract, powerful geometric grid pictures: an installation that offers the viewer an intense experience of pure color.
The Power of Colour - ARTIST STATEMENT
“I want my art to inspire people to stay in motion and persist in pursuing their ideas.”
Jana Dettmer’s art is often about nothing but pure color, about the work as an independent platform, an illusionary space.
The square plays a central role in the artist’s creative process and served as the starting point for her MODULAR MIXTURES project concept. With its two horizontal and two vertical lines, the square sets boundaries but at the same time opens itself up to the surrounding space. This format is therefore also ideal for conveying Dettmer’s message that each of us must find the courage to resolutely break new ground in our own individual way.
Jana Dettmer has been exhibiting regularly in Europe and abroad for years. Her works can be found in numerous private collections and are represented in national and international institutions, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; MAMAC, Nice; and the Frauenmuseum in Bonn. A monograph on Jana Dettmer’s work titled “Neue Farbmalerei | New Colour Painting, Werke 2016–2022” was published by ArtForum Editions in 2022.
The artist lives and works in Cologne and in the south of France.