Falk Gernegroß - Miss Wonderbar

The works of Falk Gernegroß (born 1973) thematize facets of contemporary femininity. Preference is given to woman, who are in the area of conflict between everyday phenomenons and social taboos: pin up girls, disco queens, chicks, lolitas. He finds subjects for his sujets in the visual aesthetics of trivial mass media. Out of these Gernegroß extracts model and pose and stages them in front of cosy natural landscapes. By using aesthetics of light and shadow and the technique of gaze like the painters of the Renaissance, he contextualises these pictures in a new way. So on the one hand Gernegroß` female nudes in the mood of the evening or the night arouse connotations of venus representations of Cranach or Manet as art historic predecessors of social acceptance. On the other hand - the poses of the models are frivolous, coquettish and illuminated from an unknown source - his compositions seem like a set of amateur erotic film shootings, soft porns or homemade videos - all widespread phenomenons, which reflect social cliches and conceptions of romanticism. Phantasies of everyone? Neither does Gernegroß mean to expose the female model, nor does he want to unmask the male viewer, he is to much part of it all. Rather interesting is the ancient and always current game between both of them and its contemporary forms and pictures. By linking artistically art historic references with the circulating imagery of the erotic genre, Gernegroß opens up new references in both directions. Out of this often ironic-humorous mix of high and low culture Gernegroß` paintings obtain their tension.