b. 1958 in Lauffen am Neckar
lives and works in Berlin and Neckarwestheim

One constitutive prerequisite for painting is the support to which the paint is applied. Usually, it is canvas, aluminum, wood, or paper. Anita Stöhr Weber makes this nominal and material distinction between the paint and the support the theme of her art by elevating the paint itself to the status of an object—and vice versa. Consequently, Stöhr Weber’s art takes up a very unique position within the realm of monochrome painting, which in addition to its conceptual rigor leads to new experiences on the sensory level.

Anita Stöhr Weber became known for her so-called Farbstücken, or “paint pieces,” which dispensed entirely with a support. Held together only by a binder, they consisted of skins of paint in layers of monochrome pigment, which she attached to small wire frames so that they float in front of the wall. It is pure color manifesting itself, color as material.

In her stacked paper works, by contrast, it is the white silk screening that is subtly distinct in hue from the paper. In her large-format works in acrylic glass, in turn, the paint applied with a spatula to the back of the glass comes to the foreground through the boreholes of the grid.

The inner connection of painting, support, and material thus runs through Anita Stöhr Weber’s entire oeuvre. In aesthetic terms, she forms it from highly fragile pieces of paint, silk screens, and frottages to create large-format reverse glass paintings. In conceptual terms, this connection takes ever new turns in her works. But her work always entails playing with the means of art and our visual perception.