‘Painting is very physical work, involving size, volume, and mass. This physicality is bound to be transmitted to the viewer. There are oppressive paintings and liberating paintings. My paintings confront the viewer rather than transport them to another world.’
R. Simon, ‘Raphaela Simon in conversation’, in Raphaela Simon: Paintings and Sculptures 2012–2022, Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Michael Werner Gallery / Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2022, p. 251
‘The backgrounds are mostly black at the moment. The colour of the background and whether there is a contrast between the background and the object depends on many factors. The decisive factor is the atmosphere I want to create.’
R. Simon, ‘Raphaela Simon in conversation’, in Raphaela Simon: Paintings and Sculptures 2012–2022, Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Michael Werner Gallery / Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2022, p. 250
‘Elements are painted over and altered in a slow, continuous process, in which contoured forms and classic-looking pentimenti emerge, the colours of which shine through the various layers and lend the compositions diverse, sometimes vibrating nuances. In the contours of the bodies, we can see the painter’s struggle with the subject, its volume and proportion: she thus gives the oil paint a kind of solidity and gives life to the forms in the constant balancing of the edges.’
A. Holthausen and G. Jansen, Es liebt Dich und Deine Körperlichkeit ein Verwirrter: Florian Krewer, Carina Brandes, Raphaela Simon, exh. cat. Dusseldorf: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2022, p. 14
‘Simon depicts these figures and objects mostly in shades of blue, red, pink, or gray, on almost always black backgrounds. Black features prominently in her works, where it reveals an incredible dominance and sense of depth, given the size of her canvases. Like black holes, it draws our gaze inward, it holds us tight, it touches us deep inside. The resulting darkness is reinforced by painted cages or fences in which Simon sometimes confines her figures so that they cannot leave the canvas under any circumstances.’
A. Holthausen and G. Jansen, Es liebt Dich und Deine Körperlichkeit ein Verwirrter: Florian Krewer, Carina Brandes, Raphaela Simon, exh. cat. Dusseldorf: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2022, p. 14
‘[The recent sculptures] simultaneously attract and repulse us. The oversized bodies with their broad shoulders represent a seemingly masculine power and determination that remains ambivalent in its androgynous emotional state and cannot be calculated.’
A. Holthausen and G. Jansen, Es liebt Dich und Deine Körperlichkeit ein Verwirrter: Florian Krewer, Carina Brandes, Raphaela Simon, exh. cat. Dusseldorf: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2022, p. 14
‘The figurative and the abstract do not have to be mutually exclusive. I need both, they feed each other. The abstract is very important for me because it allows me to paint intuitively, without the rules dictated by objects from reality.’
R. Simon, ‘Raphaela Simon in conversation’, in Raphaela Simon: Paintings and Sculptures 2012–2022, Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Michael Werner Gallery / Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2022, p. 250
‘In her works we see portraits of people and things, a physicality that is almost sculptural. They are titled after common objects and subjects such as Baby, Eistentür (iron door), and Zuckerwürfel (sugar cube), which points to a latent figurative potential.’
A. Holthausen and G. Jansen, Es liebt Dich und Deine Körperlichkeit ein Verwirrter: Florian Krewer, Carina Brandes, Raphaela Simon, exh. cat. Dusseldorf: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2022, p. 14
‘I have a fascination for the invisible, the hidden, the forbidden. It is where the greatest beauty lies.’
R. Simon, ‘Raphaela Simon in conversation’, in Raphaela Simon: Paintings and Sculptures 2012–2022, Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Michael Werner Gallery / Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2022, p. 252
‘I don’t make any distinctions; dark images emerge automatically and in between there are also very light ones. It creates a strong effect. In fact, I like to see light, seemingly harmless things on a level with brutal, violent things. Playful things can be as profound as a murder weapon. After all, these two aspects dwell in my one soul.’
R. Simon, ‘Raphaela Simon in conversation’, in Raphaela Simon: Paintings and Sculptures 2012–2022, Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Michael Werner Gallery / Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2022, p. 251
‘Just as Simon isn’t afraid of nostalgia, nor does she avoid the darker side of life. If before, the lightness of her palette and motifs could be seen to contrast to everything evil in the world, the aim now, Simon tells me, is to incorporate that evilness in her pictures. Her recent works continue to present contextless objects on black backgrounds, but with increasing use of deeper shades of red and blue, as well as grey.’
C. Stead, ‘A Studio Visit with Raphaela Simon’, in Raphaela Simon: Paintings and Sculptures 2012–2022, Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Michael Werner Gallery / Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2022, p. 247
‘I have to be able to let go when I paint. […] At the same time, I need rules to paint, nothing is worse than “anything goes”. As a result, there is often a concentration on one object. This one object is desocialised – it is not integrated into a perspective, a landscape, or an interior.’
R. Simon, ‘Raphaela Simon in conversation’, in Raphaela Simon: Paintings and Sculptures 2012–2022, Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Michael Werner Gallery / Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2022, p. 250
‘In Simon’s sculptures, clothing confers wealth and status, encouraging a moment of recognition – or, indeed, alienation – from visitors who come face to face with them.’
C. Stead, ‘A Studio Visit with Raphaela Simon’, in Raphaela Simon: Paintings and Sculptures 2012–2022, Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler / Michael Werner Gallery / Hannah Hoffman Gallery, 2022, p. 243
‘The refuge between representation and pure abstraction absorbs us, condenses art-historical ideas about simple geometries (and stripes) and filters them through Simon’s own standards of wit, fear, norms, detours, materials, mass…’
A. Holthausen and G. Jansen, Es liebt Dich und Deine Körperlichkeit ein Verwirrter: Florian Krewer, Carina Brandes, Raphaela Simon, exh. cat. Dusseldorf: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2022, p. 14
All works: © Raphaela Simon