True to its name, the Discovery Art Fair has initiated a special program this year, sponsoring five 10-square-meter booths to represent five promising emerging artists. Members of an independent jury, Dr. Elke Backes, Ardi Goldman, Dr. Joerk Rothamel, Sonja Steinberger, and Gerard A. Goodrow, selected the winners.
Represented by different galleries, the selected artists this year are Magalie Darsouze (nulle p.art gallery), Luis Maria Sulzmann (ARP Galerie), Moritz Koch (SIGHT Galerie), Felicithas Arndt (Galerie Barbara von Stechow) and Carmen Benner (Galerie Klose) at Discovery Art Fair Frankfurt.
The booths are settled in the middle section of the fairground, labeled with a “Discover a Talent” sign.
With this program, Discovery Art Fair is reinventing an old idea from Art Cologne in a new way, giving space to promising talents and further elevating the quality of art exhibited each year.
Felicithas Arndt, detail
Magalie Darsouze
Nostalgia dominates the space where the works of Magalie Darsouze are shown.
Large and small drawings resemble old black-and-white photographs. They are half-faded, overexposed, or distorted, just like the memories of the moments when they were taken. Darsouze immerses herself in imagined narratives by using both personal and borrowed photographic sources and composes group portraits of families, friends, and coworkers from a bygone era.
She works with graphite pencils, and her minute technique is impeccable, portraying the dainty glimpses of captured emotions with particular care. She is a master draughtswoman whose skill serves her expression right. As we face her works, we are left to ruminate on our personal histories, allowing the familiar and the dissipating in.
Magalie Darsouze is represented by Nulle P.art gallery.
Magalie Darsouze Booth
Luis Maria Sulzmann
Fascinated by the marble-plated insides of Athens residential buildings, Luis Maria Sulzmann created a series of experimental photographic works to reconstruct the “homogeneous aura” of a specific place. It’s more than an aura he managed to capture; it’s a memento inhabited by the larger experience filtered through a dedicated creative process.
The use of marble in Southern European foyers is a matter of tradition. This cool, durable, and undeniably beautiful material creates a particular aesthetic that is cohesive with the interior architecture. It’s this that fascinated Sulzmann, swayed by the layered, deeper significance of this natural choice. Completely immersed in a new cultural setting, Sulzmann was overcome with the fascination of Athens’ luxurious foyers in contrast with the lives of people from the margin dwelling right outside, divided from the luster by a thin barrier of glass.
As a result of this enchantment, he put his camera to work, creating visions of these unattainable, magical building entrances, rendering the final works in a complex photographic process.
His experimental approach involves subjecting photographs to extreme conditions such as heat and chemical treatments. He combines light, space, and material to develop a particular depth and immerse visitors in an emotionally charged visual language.
Luis Maria Sulzmann is represented by ARP Galerie.
Luis Maria Sulzmann Booth
Moritz Koch
A cinematic approach to photography, provocative topics, an eerie atmosphere, and an impressive technique make Moritz Koch a rising talent to watch.
A self-taught photo director, Koch is dedicated to staging narrative photography, telling unsettling, odd, and unexpected stories about social ideals, fast-paced life, climate change, and digitalization. Inspired by retro-futurism, his photos are visually stunning, clean-cut, and well-staged. Peeling the meaning off layer by layer, we recognize a social commentary and end up digging through our personal positions in reference to society, as well as our inner anxiety.
Detailed and entertaining to explore, his photographs offer something new for every viewing, keeping us interested and alert.
As he continues to develop these spectacular narrative stills, Koch is expanding his practice into staged 360° photography and VR, deleting the barriers between reality and imagination and allowing us to immerse ourselves in his truth.
Moritz Koch is represented by SIGHT Gallery.
Moritz Koch Booth
Felicithas Arndt
Focusing her artistic work on ceramic art, Felicithas Arndt has shown dedication, effort, technical prowess, the will to experiment proving she is a gifted young artist with a promising future.
Having studied Sinology and Asian cultures, Arndt is profoundly influenced by the artistic traditions of Asia, both technical and aesthetic. Her ceramic works range from utilitarian crockery to large-scale sculptures and are accompanied by delicate drawings that bring forward her interpretations of Asian visual abundance.
Her booth at the Discovery Art Fair in Frankfurt represents a well-selected overview of her practice, flanked by two imposing sculptures from the “Madrepora” series. Observing her expression, we recognize a fascination with flora and fauna, especially aquatic animals and plants, primitive natural systems, flowing forms, and symbiotic communities.
There is something alluring in the tactility of her sculptures and in the textures she boldly uses in different techniques. A combination of natural and Asian motifs creates a unique harmony on the verge of abstraction, exuding a special, calm, yet vibrant energy.
Felicithas Arndt is represented by Galerie Barbara von Stechow.
Felicithas Arndt Booth
Carmen Benner
Women in photorealistic paintings by Carmen Benner are still. But each tells a story. They are goddesses and heroines from literature, fairy tales, and mythologies, but also from everyday life. Calm in their work, these characters exude a particular power over the viewer, captivating them with their gaze or their movement to imprint a strong message. Executed exceptionally well, some of Benner’s canvases are sprinkled with flowers or similar additions and covered with resin to preserve the timeless character they embody.
Carmen Benner has been painting since her teenage years and, over time, has adopted hyperrealism as her own style. However, her works reach far beyond the decorative, as the atmosphere she captures implies a larger narrative. We can find hints of these bigger stories in carefully placed details within each painting or in their titles, while we’re free to invent our own interpretation of each.
Having studied the style from her mentor Jorge Villalba, the Spanish hyperrealist, Carmen Benner succeeded in making the style innate to her unique visual language, which doesn’t only hang onto the visual but expands into the intangible, imaginative realms.
Carmen Benner is represented by Gallerie Klose.
Carmen Benner Booth
Discover a Talent booths are currently on display at the Discovery Art Fair in Frankfurt, until November 3, 2024.