Born in 1974 in Heerlen, Netherlands, Hadassah Emmerich lives and works in Berlin. Emmerich creates sculptures, paintings, drawings and large-scale wall pieces. Her practice engages with notions of identity and otherness, using imagery associated with exoticism, femininity and masquerade. Emmerich’s work is informed by a wide-range of sources including graffiti, pulp fiction novels and travel advertisements, as well as symbols drawn from her own multiethnic background – being of Dutch, Indonesian, Chinese and German decent. Her baroque style alternates delicate stencils and thick impastos. Her iconography, which often includes depictions of exotic women and ornamental foliage amidst sensuous networks of meandering lines, suggests the lure of foreignness but also its snare, over-flowing with sexual promise, lush excess and unbridled sentimentality.
Hadassah Emmerich has recently presented solo exhibitions at Kordegarda, department of Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2008), Invaliden1, Berlin (2008), Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2007), Galerie Akinci Amsterdam (2007) and GEM, museum of contemporary art, The Hague (2005). Her work has also been shown as part of “Be(com)ing Dutch” at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2008), “Dark Continents” at MOCA, Miami (2008), “In the Shadows. Images of the new pop romanticism” at Kunstverein Wolfsburg (2008), “Cultural Confusion” at Elisabeth Kaufmann gallery, Zürich (2007) and “Globos Sonda/Trial Balloons” at Musac, León (2006). Se has been awarded the Fritschy Cultuurprijs, Museum Het Domein, Sittard, Netherlands (2006) as well as the Parkstadprijs, Stadsgalerij Heerlen, Netherlands (2000).
For additional information about this artist, visit Mutual Art
