Melissa Steckbauer: On Titration / Am I Dreaming
“The cadence of shifting from a universality to an individuated experiencing in this reality is that of a seasonally shifting waterfall: awash and overwhelmed by the richness of touches and motion or bare, simple, and slow in isolation. The impetus to reach for an understanding of this living is helpful but also evolutionarily young; it may return us to an understanding of ourselves as a singular vehicle and along with it: ego, trivialities, and an organisation of brain function principally geared toward survival. [Here we arrive at the most boring tropes of money and power.] Often grounded in somatics, a greater symbiosis can come with a big breath in of shared, surfeit being; an unconditional psychic net is thrown over -- or better dragged from under -- an imagined consciousness and an empathy so unwieldy is born of this that any attempt at judgement or the measure of experience and complexity is recognised as a missed-measure upon an unbounded landscape. When recognised for its value as a shared complexity, this brings luminance and resonance, co-, or "with-ness." This non-conditional state is however unsustainable and a return to individuation, solidity, and often grief (or violence) quickly returns. This scaling up or down makes living musical.”
– Melissa Steckbauer
“The cadence of shifting from a universality to an individuated experiencing in this reality is that of a seasonally shifting waterfall: awash and overwhelmed by the richness of touches and motion or bare, simple, and slow in isolation. The impetus to reach for an understanding of this living is helpful but also evolutionarily young; it may return us to an understanding of ourselves as a singular vehicle and along with it: ego, trivialities, and an organisation of brain function principally geared toward survival. [Here we arrive at the most boring tropes of money and power.] Often grounded in somatics, a greater symbiosis can come with a big breath in of shared, surfeit being; an unconditional psychic net is thrown over -- or better dragged from under -- an imagined consciousness and an empathy so unwieldy is born of this that any attempt at judgement or the measure of experience and complexity is recognised as a missed-measure upon an unbounded landscape. When recognised for its value as a shared complexity, this brings luminance and resonance, co-, or "with-ness." This non-conditional state is however unsustainable and a return to individuation, solidity, and often grief (or violence) quickly returns. This scaling up or down makes living musical.”
– Melissa Steckbauer
By centering more-than-human affect, transgressive behaviour, and somatic psychology, Steckbauer’s work explores ecstatic potential and the unpacking of shame in culture. Moreover, she seeks a language to better describe a multiplicity of consciousness, at the intersection of the immaterial and the material.
Visually, she responds equally to the polarity felt when identifying strongly with community, e.g., expansive “togetherness” properties and the sense of solidarity — beside feelings of isolation and autonomy as experienced when holding a singular position, e.g., as a body, a vocalisation, or a clarity about where one stands — however egregious. This feeling runs parallel to those one finds in body-werk communities (massage, reiki, yoga, bioenergetics, BDSM, etc.) in that a too-close identification can often feel cultish; however, without a framework to closely identify in or with — we may feel lost. This stretch between positions is a recognisable and important aspect of her work.
Formally, there are concerns here which are purely about paint, egomaniacal quests for great material excision and or construction. She builds quickly over a series of works as opposed to within a singular body; trial is favoured over excellence in recurrence. And with herself as the viewer, to feel ‘touched’, squished, or aroused by these results is the aim.
Melissa Steckbauer (b. 1980, Tucson, USA) studied at Utrecht University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was the founder of The Wand and The Sensorium Institute in Berlin. Her work has been featured in Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul; West Den Haag, Den Haag; Castello di Rivoli, Museum of Contemporary Art, Rivoli; KW, Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Galerie im Turm, Berlin; Deutsch Bank KunstHalle, Berlin; Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga; Teatr Studio at the Palace of Culture & Science, Warsaw; District, Berlin; & Le Salon Du Dessin, Paris. She is represented by Skopia Art contemporain in Geneva, Switzerland. This is her second exhibition with Galerie Kandlhofer.
