Girl with Favorite Animal: Diana Achtzig's Watercolors in the Degewo Hochhaus Galerie

From September 12, 2018, to January 9, 2019, the Degewo Hochhaus Galerie at Raoul-Wallenberg-Straße 40/42 in Berlin-Marzahn showcased a solo exhibition by the Berlin painter Diana Achtzig. It was the third exhibition in the series in which the gallery presents members of the Montagsmaler aus Biesdorf. On display were 24 figurative watercolors from the years 2017 and 2018, created as part of the painting group.

The Essentials at a Glance

• The exhibition ran from September 12, 2018, to January 9, 2019, in the foyer of the Degewo high-rise in Marzahn.
• 24 watercolors from the years 2017 and 2018 were shown.
• The focus was on a series of ten pictures of young girls with their favorite animals.
• Additionally, there were architectural and landscape views created during painting trips in the open air.

Diana Achtzig is a trained artist and gallerist. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she founded a gallery in Amsterdam, later opening the Achtzig Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin, which was then located in Prenzlauer Berg. As a painter, she works in oil, acrylic, and watercolor. Her paintings have been exhibited at the art fair Berliner Liste, and they have been discussed in books and catalogs, such as in the volume "Das Museum der Berliner Schule der Malerei und die Kunst von Diana Achtzig". [13]

The centerpiece of the exhibition was a series of ten watercolors of young girls with their favorite animal. The painting "The Fox and the Girl" (2018, watercolor and acrylic on paper, 59.4 × 42 cm) refers to the film of the same name by Luc Jacquet ("Le Renard et l’Enfant", France 2007). The play with colors and the dynamic brushwork are appealing here.

Bright pastel tones with vibrant red and pink dominate "The Girl with Red Fish" (2018, watercolor on paper, 59.4 × 42 cm). The sheet is the preliminary study for an oil painting on canvas measuring 60 × 50 cm. The dreamy, hard-to-interpret gaze of the girl is reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa."

"The Girl with Dragonfly" (2018, watercolor and nail polish on paper, 59.4 × 42 cm) hints at the world of horned mythical creatures like Lucifer and Baphomet, which repeatedly appear in Diana Achtzig's oil paintings.

In 2017, Diana Achtzig traveled with the Biesdorfer Montagsmaler on a painting trip to Hohenfinow in Brandenburg to paint in the open air. Several architectural and landscape watercolors were created in the process. "The Red Hut in Hohenfinow with Two Trees" (2017, watercolor on paper, 40 × 50 cm) impresses with its balanced composition. "The GDR Construction Trailer in Hohenfinow" (2017, watercolor on paper, 40 × 50 cm) thrives on fresh green and blue tones; in the background, the sweeping brushstroke creates movement.

She also painted outdoors in 2018. Vivid in color is the watercolor "Tower, Rabenstein Castle" in Chemnitz (2018, watercolor on paper, 48 × 36 cm). The interplay of surfaces reveals the cubist principle on which Diana Achtzig builds her pictorial spaces. In contrast, "Tower 1, Wiesenburg Castle" (2018, watercolor on paper, 48 × 36 cm) appears bright and light, almost minimalist. "Birdhouse 1, Hotel Brandsheide" in Wiesenburg/Mark is painted in delicate lilac and pink tones (2018, watercolor on paper, 48 × 36 cm), with a pink flower on the right edge of the picture adding an accent.

The exhibition concluded with the cheerful watercolors "The Lovers in Amsterdam" and "The Lovers in Paris" (both 2018, watercolor on paper, 59.4 × 42 cm).

It was Diana Achtzig's first solo exhibition in the gallery. In 2021, “Chimeras of Animal and Human in the Time of the Corona Pandemic” followed there, and she also showed animal portraits based on photos and sketches. You can read more about the gallery in the foyer of the high-rise in the article Degewo Hochhaus Galerie introduces itself, and about her images between humans and animals in the contribution to the exhibition “Mythical Fusion of Human and Animal”.