Anne Wölk

Anne Wölk (1982, Jena/Germany) was born and raised in former East Germany. She is a figurative painter whose artistic work stands in the tradition of realistic contemporary artists Vija Celmins and Russel Crotty. Committed to an attitude of reskilling, Wölk uses traditional methods and materials. Her paintings predominantly show us night sky scenes with deep and open galaxies. By quoting Spacetelescope images and digital photography resources, Anne Wölk tests the margins between art and reality. In 2006, the young artist entered the international art world at the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, when the collector Can Elgiz bought one of her large-scale paintings for the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art in Istanbul. Later on, Anne Wölk received an MFA from the School of Art and Design Berlin and was a BFA student at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. 

Her awards include the national Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes scholarship; the Alpine Fellowship grant at Aldourie Castle, Scotland, UK; and a residency at Bodensee Art Fund. She has exhibited at international institutions, including the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey; the CICA Art Museum South Korea; and the Zeiss-Planetarium Berlin, Germany.

Wölk has since shown her work in private gallery shows, including Galería Luis Adelantado, Valencia; Arebyte Gallery, London; Galerie Wolfsen, Aalborg; Pantocrator Gallery, Shanghai; and Alfa Gallery Miami.​ Woelk currently lives and works in Berlin.

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Nebulae, which are formed from interstellar clouds of dust, hydrogen, and helium, are a great source of inspiration for me. They are symbols of aesthetic contemplation – of pure and true beauty in nature.

As a child, I saw countless simulations of stellar skies and demonstrations of planetary runs at 360-degree shows at the planetarium in my hometown Jena. Jena was the center for laser and optics technology in the former GDR. These formative experiences continually influenced my interest in science fiction and space travel.

The subject matter of my paintings speaks through the imagery of futuristic science and technology, which we have only become familiar with because of the advances in satellites, cameras, cinematography, and computer-generated images. As a citizen of the society of digital culture, I alter astrophotographic pictures and photos from the Hubble Space Telescope and integrate them into my motifs and my personal painting cosmos.

I layer content from these diverse sources in a fantastic interpretation of nature in which the simultaneity of Romanticism and Utopia becomes perceptible.

In this context, my work explores the relationship between art and science.