Alke Schmidt | Pandemic Spring (and Birds of America)

The exhibition is extended from 6 December till 12 December.

From Thursday 7 November till 12 December 2020, PontArte, Maastricht.

“Pandemic Spring” is the title of Alke Schmidt’s first solo exhibition at PontArte in Maastricht.

In collaboration with Tasneem Gallery (Berlin/Barcelona http://tasneemgallery.com/) we show 2 special projects in the gallery in the month of November of this German artist living in London. In addition to Pandemic Spring, Birds of America will be on display.

Pandemic Spring (https://www.alkeschmidt.com/pandemic-spring) is a work that was made during the 1st corona wave. Alke Schmidt has created a journal of the Coronavirus pandemic, inspired by the contrast between the coronavirus charts  and the registration in drawings, paintings and mixed meda of the beautiful, life-affirming signs of spring that are everywhere in the coming nature in spring.

Each work consists of a watercolor and pencil drawing (and a few collages) made on an A4 print of graphs showing the total number of coronavirus cases and in 8 countries on the day of the drawing.

The source of the charts is coronavirusgraphs.com (not available any more), which is data from John Hopkins CSSE.

In April a drawing was made every day, as part of 12o Collective’s 30Works30Days challenge.

Through June 21, the first day of summer, a weekly registration took place.

The ‘Birds of America‘ project was inspired by the massive oil spill from the BP Deepwater Horizon rig in 2010 with its disastrous effect on the wetland habitats in the Gulf of Mexico – and by Alke’s discovery, in a box of old prints, of a nearly complete set of pages from a reprint of John James Audubon’s famous illustrated book “The Birds of America”.
Noticing how many of the featured birds breed or winter in the areas affected by the oil spill, she overpainted the prints with the outline shapes of the spill on different days of the disaster.