For the first time in more than eleven years, Galerie Springer Berlin is once again showing an exhibition dedicated to painting as well as photography. And for the first time we are presenting works by the Polish artist Anna Szprynger. She was born in Warsaw in 1982 and studied graphics and painting at the College of Fine Arts in Kazimierz Dolny and at the Maria Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin. This was followed by a doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw under the supervision of Professor Dorota Grynczel.

For a long time, Szprynger worked in the field of geometric abstraction. Recently, she has left her comfort zone and ventured into new territory. “As an artist, you observe, think, feel and then slowly begin to steer your work towards abstraction – this is a very common path of artistic exploration. For me it’s the other way round – I’m looking for a way out of abstraction because I’m a bit fed up with it and I’m trying to expand the artistic landscape”.

Anna Szprynger’s painting is based on a black primed canvas on which she creates delicate lines with fine size 000 brushes. The Polish writer Marek Bieńczyk writes in a text: “I like to imagine your hand thinking. I like even more to imagine or simply realise that all these little lines (lines, stripes, wires, threads, sticks, rays) are the thoughts of her hands.” In his remarkable essay, he compares the effect of Szprynger’s painting with the feeling of happiness he experienced when reading Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time”. “Perhaps this happiness is connected to musical sensation.” Bieńczyk writes a little later.

He also speaks of melodic compositions and generated tones. This is what we feel when we look at Anna Szprynger’s art and what ultimately determined the title of the exhibition. In both painting and photography, we perceive deep minor tones. And isn’t it ultimately the deep tones and compositions in a minor key that trigger great moments of happiness?

In the exhibition, we are showing new works that have emerged from her observations of textures and patterns while travelling in nature. Alongside the exhibited paintings by Anna Szprynger, photographs created in parallel will be shown, which for the artist are not an inspiration but a symbiosis. Without the photographs, the painted pictures would not exist and she does not know whether the photographs would have been created if she had not visually perceived the underlying themes. In addition to the new works, we present classical works from her repertoire.

One remark at the end: The fact that the artist – in Polish spelling – has the same name as us and our gallery may be a coincidence, but the fascination that Szprynger’s art has exerted on us since we got to know her a good eight years ago contradicts the principle of chance.

Heide & Robert Springer