By applying imagery as short-hand for both her own art making process or specific (cultural) signs and figurations, Gerda Scheepers explores the medium of painting. Content and formal elements of painting are remixed through cut, copy and paste with the results actively pursuing ambiguity. Her paintings, as well as her sculptures, operate like devices for containment that, ultimately crucially, fail to contain. Scheepers delves into the techniques of collage and decoupage, using them as visual and linguistic instruments to disrupt the continuum of the familiar and enable a continuum between apparently disparate registers. Simultaneously, she employs collage as a tool to didactically, and sometimes humorously, imitate the brutal fragmentation brought on by life’s daily efforts. In Scheepers’ words, “the studio functions somehow as a capsule, where possibilities and restrictions play themselves out.”
Scheepers graduated from the Dusseldorf Art Academy in 2005 and won the Art Cologne Preis fur junge Kunst in 2006. Solo exhibitions include MOTHER BROTHER (blank projects, 2024), Chapel TV (ak contemporary, 2023), The Way The Lamp (ak contemporary, 2021), CologneRooms (Mary Mary Gallery, 2019), fabric actors (Galerie PCP, 2018), Body Corporate (Mary Mary Gallery, 2016), Sitcom (blank projects, 2016), PSYCHO SOCIO SURFACE (blank projects, 2014), A Social Life (Of Image) (Mary Mary Gallery, 2013), Modal Approach and Accent (blank projects, 2012) and Low and partial: Romantic Comedy (Kunstverein Nuremberg, 2012). In 2012, she was awarded the Marianne-Defet- Malerei-Stipendium.
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curriculum vitae
1979 Born Tzaneen, South Africa
education
2001 – 2005 Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
1999 – 2001 Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Arnhem
solo exhibitions
2024 MOTHER BROTHER, blank projects, Cape Town
2023 Chapel TV, ak contemporary, Cologne, Germany
2021 The Way The Lamp, ak contemporary, Cologne, Germany
2019 Rooms, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2018 fabric actors, Galerie PCP, Paris, France
2016 Body Corporate, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2016 SITCOM, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 PSYCHO SOCIO SURFACE, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 A Social Life (Of Image), MaryMary, Glasgow, Scotland
2013 Ca. Dilemma, (collaboration with Marieta Chirulescu), PIGNA PROJECT SPACE, Rome, Italy
2013 Centerfold, Possible Press Volume 3: Issue 1, Philadelphia, USA
2013 Talking about 12 paintings, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 STUDIO BALLET, screening in the SL-public gallery of the Stockholm Underground, Sweden
2012 Low and Partial Romantic Comedy, Kunstverein Nürnberg – Albrecht Dürer Gsellschaft, Switzerland
2012 Modal Approach and Accent, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Medium and Modality, OSLO10, Basel, Switzerland
2011 Rauminhalt Äquivalente, Micky Schubert, Berlin, Germany
2011 Art Berlin Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2011 Relations short before Form, Koffer Ausstellungsraum, Berlin, Germany
2010 Written Spoken Pictures, Center, Berlin, Germany
2010 Inside Arrangement. International II, Mary Mary, Glasgow, Scotland
2009 Taras Bookies 2007/2009, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Germany
2008 Inside Arrangement. International, Micky Schubert, Berlin, Germany
2007 The Office Projects and Others, Art Cologne Preis für Junge Kunst 2006 at Artothek, Cologne, Germany
2006 Things Prepared, Art Cologne 2006, Cologne, Germany
2006 (New Talents Program), Sprüth Magers, Cologne / Munich / London
2006 Come Garden of the Combed Rocks, Bonner Kunstverein, Peter Mertes Stipendium, Germany
2005 Lace and Traces, di.vitrine, Düsseldorf, Germany
2005 Linescape, Bar Ornella, Cologne, Germany
group exhibitions
2025 SUPERMÖBEL, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany
2023 lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 Wenn's draußen grün wird, fällt mir nur noch Liebe ein II, ak contemporary, Cologne, Germany
2022 Where do I begin?, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 I have made a place, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 The thing itself exists everywhere, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2020 Love your symptom, but not too much, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 the head the hand, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 Russian Morning, MD Bar, Cologne, Germany
2019 Im Grunde ist es die Wahrheit (Essentially it’s the Truth), Magenta Plains, New York, USA
2018 open agenda, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 BACK TO THE FUTURE III, Abstract Art In South Africa: Past and Present, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2018 blank, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin, Germany
2018 Da Uno a Dieci, Galleria Massimo Manini, Brescia, Italy
2017 17, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 A Painting Today, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Alluring shapes, tempting spaces, Galerie Eva Meyer, Paris, France
2016 SHE MIGHT BE, Delmes and Zander, Cologne, Germany
2016 “Jeder sollte in der Lage sein, Kunst zu erwerben.”, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen
2016 Figure, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 Furniture: a sculpture exhibition, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 Group Show, Micky Schubert, Micky Schubert, Berlin, Germany
2015 Bild und Anpassung, Städtische Galerie, Waldkraiburg, Germany
2015 Back to the Future II: Abstract Art in South Africa: Past & Present, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2014 Thinking, Feeling, Head, Heart, The New Church Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 next thing you know, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Danjuma Collection: One Man’s Trash (is Another Man’s Treasure), London, UK
2014 Part 1: Katharina Marszewski and Gerda Scheepers, Galerie Warhus Rittershaus, Cologne, Germany
2014 Inside Arrangement, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2014 Bild Und Anpassung / Image And Adaptation, Palais Für Aktuelle Kunst, Glückstadt, Germany
2014 DON’T YOU FEEL ME, Galerie Micky Shubert, Berlin, Germany
2013 Hotel International, Galerie Warhus Rittershaus / Marsil Hotel, Cologne, Germany
2013 PAINTING FOREVER! KEILRAHMEN, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
2013 Van Bommel Van Dam Prize exhibition, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany
2013 This is the thing, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 blank projects in Johannesburg, Ithuba Arts Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 The Stairs, Algus Greenspon Gallery, New York, USA
2013 Van Bommel Van Dam Prize nominees exhibition, Van Bommel Van Dam Museum, Venlo, Netherlands
2013 LIGEGYLDIGT HVORHEN, BLOT UDENFOR VERDEN, Gallerie Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen, Denmark
2013 Provinz Neue Editionen, Galerie Vera Gliem, Cologne, Germany
2013 blank projects, Art Cologne/NADA, Cologne, Germany
2012 When Form Becomes Attitude, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 3 Positionen zu Malerei, collaboration with Varda Caivano und Maria Chirulescu, Galerie Barbara Gross, München, South Africa
2012 Be with me, Galerie Peter Bergman, Stockholm, Sweden
2012 Cocaine – Blows my brain, Spor Klüüb, Berlin, Germany
2012 Re-Opening, Deweer Gallery, Otegem, Belgium
2011 The yarn beam and the revolving stage, Galerie Thomas Flor, Düsseldorf, Germany
2011 Dwelling, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, USA
2011 Gerda Scheepers & Alistair Frost, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2011 Morgen, Provinz Editionen, Bochum, Germany
2011 SINGLE-club, Düsseldorf, Germany
2010 Ladies Room, Galerie Warhus Rittershaus, Cologne, Germany
2010 Drawing on Coats and Hindered Kindreds, Oktober, Düsseldorf, Germany
2010 The Importance of Being Earnest, Naumannstrasse 81, Berlin, Germany
2010 A Thing is a Thing in a Whole Which it’s Not, Temporary Gallery Cologne, Mauritiuswall 35, Cologne, Germany
2010 Dearie Does the Do not Care, Halle für Kunst E.V., Lüneburg
2010 Woodman, Woodman, Who Spare That Tree, Galerie Micky Schubert, Berlin, Germany
2009 Arrival Inside, Mary Mary, Glasgow, Scotland
2009 dok25a, Düsseldorf, Germany
2007 Elegance, Kölnischer Kunstverein (collaborative work with Thea Djordjadze and Rosemarie Trockel)
2007 We Stopped in The Colonnade, Hotel, London, UK
2007 Showing Landscape, Cologne, Germany
2006 Modus, Neue Kunsthalle St. Gallen (collaborative work with Thea Djordjadze and Rosemarie Trockel)
2006 I Could Chair This Dance, Simultanhalle, Cologne, Germany
2006 Bar Ornella auf dem Hügel, Kunst:Dialoge Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
2006 Teller und Unterschiebung, acapulco, Düsseldorf, Germany
2005 Regarding Düsseldorf – Junge Kunst in Düsseldorf, 701 e.V. Düsseldorf, Germany
2005 7, Sprüth Magers Lee, London, UK
2005 Fünf für Köln, Panzer und Schöne Aussicht, Cologne, Germany
2005 unitdèd, Plain Bar de Player, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2004 Cotton, Bone and Rock spread like a single Thing of thin and hard when wet with Ocean Water, Panzer
2004 Thea Djordjadze, Robert Elfgen, Gerda Scheepers, Sprüth Magers Projekte, Munich, Germany
2004 Rheinschau, Art Cologne, Sprüth Magers Projekte, Munich, Germany
2002 Klasse Rosemarie Trockel, Kunstverein Gelsenkirchen, Germany
awards and bursaries
2011 Marianne-Defet-Malerei-Stipendium, Kunstverein Nürnberg
2008 Arbeitsstipendium Kunststiftung NRW
2006 Art Cologne New Talents Prize 2006
2005 Peter Mertes Stipendium, Bonner Kunstverein
2004 Travel grant, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
independent projects
2005 – 2006 Bar Ornella (Maibachstraße, Köln)
Bar founded and run together with other artists, where exhibitions and art projects took place once a week.
2004 – 2005 Panzer (Thebäerstr. 14, Köln)
Exhibition space, founded and run together with Jan Meier and Simon Hemmer.
