Angela Hampel

In Angela Hampel's work, women appear as both stronger and more vulnerable, helpless human beings. The message conveyed by her works, their aesthetic and sensual charisma, is therefore one of provocation, rebellion and resistance. It is the high standards she sets for humanity, expressed in images and symbols, that she cannot let go of. It is therefore natural and quite simply a resistance, arising from an inner state of mind, to the types of conformity and emotional, intellectual and consistently practical complacency that are common today. (...) Without beating about the bush, in other words decorative accessories such as formal internal structures, mere ornaments, gestures that lead to (meaningful) emptiness, Angela Hampel gets to the core of relationships, penetrating the innermost depths of a mental and physical state. The expressive becomes ecstatic; far from being a sedate narrative, the pictorial figures, written down in a condensed, abrupt, excited manner – especially in the drawings and in the basic framework of the watercolours and paintings – reveal a state of psychological immediacy during the creative process. Awkward and fluid at the same time, a broken elegance emerges, a will to freedom between effusion and danger, the aforementioned animalistic with and in the feminine signals of longing, the greed for a floating state of happiness as well as the fear of despair.

In addition to images of rebellion and intense erotic-Dionysian obsessions in a battle of the sexes between lust and psychological and physical hurt, most of the works take on an even stronger existential dimension, a sense of doubt about the ability to survive despite a greatly increased will to live.

From Cassandra and Penthesilea, Hampelturned to an exploration of other powerful women from mythology and the Bible, including Judith, Medea, and Salome, examining the tendency of patriachal societies for powerful women to be presented as both violent monsters and and also beautiful objects for the male gaze. In sharp contrast, Hampel explores the individuality of these women, presnting them as naked and introspectiv rathen than nude and sexually alluring.