Helene B. Grossmann: Before the Light

Kimreeaa Gallery is pleased to present Before the Light, a solo exhibition by German artist Helene B. Grossmann (b. 1943), on view from June 4 to June 28, 2025. Featuring 22 paintings created between 2010 and 2022, the exhibition traces the long arc of Grossmann’s artistic journey—one that explores the flow of perception and sensation through light and color.

Born in Dresden, former East Germany, Grossmann studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. In the 1980s, she pursued her artistic practice while also engaging deeply with Asian philosophy and culture. Facing censorship and exhibition bans under the East German regime, she chose exile and, since 1988, has continued her work based in Munich and Switzerland. Through this personal and political trajectory, Grossmann has consistently demonstrated how painting can move beyond representation or explanation, becoming a space for contemplating the very sensation of being.

Her paintings do not depict specific scenes or narratives. Instead, they are filled with traces of sensation quietly accumulated over time—drawn from unfamiliar landscapes she has lingered in and the subtle qualities of light perceived there. The flow of color across her canvases evokes the texture of air or the temperature of time—an elusive sensitivity that stirs something within the viewer. What Grossmann observes is the delicate movement of light passing by, color settling, and the momentary stillness that hovers between them.

The exhibition’s title, Before the Light, refers to the moment just before brilliance—a heightened stillness in which the senses awaken most acutely. Her colors do not assert themselves, yet form deep and transparent layers that gradually settle into the surface. Rather than dazzling the eye, the light in her work quietly emerges from within the viewer’s gaze, gently opening the senses. For Grossmann, painting is not just where color and light reside—it is where sensation itself takes place.

This exhibition transcends the boundaries of simple fields of color or abstraction. It invites us to follow the accumulated grain of a painterly inquiry sustained over many years. Instead of a rigid structure, her open compositions allow color density, the condition of light, and the lingering trace of vision to exist as both landscape and state of being. The viewer drifts through these works, immersing in their gentle resonance. Painting becomes a space into which feeling and perception slowly seep, offering us a place to linger in our rhythm.