ingrid weber, "Farbmittel"

sept. 7 - oct. 29, 2002
taguchi fine art, ltd.










































Born in Obermaubach/ Eifel, Germany in 1961, Ingrid Weber now resides in Duesseldorf and New York. She got the Meisterschuelerin from Jan Dibbets at the Art Academy in Duesseldorf in 1991 and worked as assistant of Dibbets for few years. Received a scholarship from Ernst Poensgen Foundation and stayed in New York in 2000.




microscopic finest pigment particles - Farbmittel

German word "Farb" means color and "mittel" means material. Thus "Farbmittel" means color material. To put it concretely, it is "the microscopic finest pigment particles" with which Ingrid Weber creates her paintings.
Generally "pigments" and "bind materials" as glue or Arabic gum which enables the pigments fixed to canvas are the two most basic and important elements in the process of painting. With them, artist can visualize what he or she wants to express on canvas.
Ingrid Weber has been consistently creating monochrome painting which is constructed with a single color pigment or a few limited number of different color pigments. She titles her solo exhibition "Farbmittel" since it is the exact word to express what her monochrome paintings are and through it her investigation has been made.
Before she paints, as a preparatory process, she carefully compounds some different colors of pigments. By changing the proportion of each pigment to mix, Weber makes some new color pigments that have slightly different "color-value" from each other. For instance, she makes many different kind of green color pigments, changing the portion of yellow color pigment or blue color pigment, or changing quantities or type of bind materials. Then she chooses some slightly different color-value pigments and paints them on canvases respectively.




expression of light

As science explains color as the difference of the index of refraction of light, the expression of color is the matter of the conveyance of one's sensation of light to others. Only with light, we can perceive the difference of colors. This is very true in case of the colors of the pigments that Weber deals with great care.
Therefore, the color she creates by herself essentially contains the light with which and in which she has painted the painting. Of course she works in natural light and very sensitive to the difference of light - the light of her studio in Duesseldorf, the light of her studio in New York, the light in the Plaza in Vienna, all light is different. It must be these peculiar lights she experienced in certain place and at certain time, that Ingrid Weber tries to present through "Farbmittel".
No lights are the same, and thus no colors are the same. They are changing every moment. Everyday is different from the day before, being irreplaceable.
Ingrid Weber, facing to canvas in her studio, always gets rid of all her prejudice. She mixes pigments and creates new colors with fresh innocent feeling. While putting pigments on canvas layer and layer with painting knife, new unevenness, shadows and new light, new colors come into being on the surface of the canvas.




Work in New York just after the 9.11

Ingrid Weber moved to Brooklyn in New York in October 2001, when shortly after the attack to the WTC. She could smell something burning, the smell coming over the East River from the Ground Zero.
One day having been carried some subway stations past her destination, she unexpectedly happened to reach the Ground Zero, where she had made up her mind not to go. The horrible wreckage of the buildings and the people offering flowers and praying, the scene made her create two paintings titled "New York Square" which was made with gray colored pigment. Gray is the color, which she regards as the standard color.




The installation at taguchi fine art, ltd. is her second one-person show and the first occasion to display her works in Japan. We can see her recent development after her new standard work, "New York Square".



We had a lecture about color by Prof. Fujio Maeda, leading scholar on color theory by J. W. von Goethe and a speech by the artist on the first day, September 7th.




checklist of the installation
1.Untitled (cadmium-brown), 2001,
oil, pigment on canvas, 27 x 26 cm
2.Untitled (c-red no.4), 1997,
oil, pigment on canvas, 27 x 26 cm
3.Untitled (ultramarine blue, parisien blue), 2000,
oil, pigment on canvas, 27 x 26 cm
4.Untitled (c-brown, titan-orange), 2001,
oil, pigment on canvas, 27 x 26 cm
5.Untitled (c-brown, t-orange), 2001,
oil, pigment on canvas, 27 x 26 cm
6.Untitled (c-yellow, vagoner-green earth), 2001,
oil, pigment on canvas, 27 x 26 cm
7.Untitled (slate), 1999,
oil, pigment on canvas, 37 x 37 cm
8.Untitled (alizarin-violet), 2001,
oil, pigment on canvas, 57 x 53 cm
9.Untitled (slate-new york square), 2001,
oil, pigment on canvas, 60.9 x 60.9 cm
10.Untitled (vag.-green, ul.-blue), 2002,
oil, pigment on canvas, 60.9 x 60.9 cm
11.Untitled (vag.-green, ul.-blue, c-yellow), 2002,
oil, pigment on canvas, 60.9 x 60.9 cm
12.Untitled (c-yellow, vag.-green), 2002,
oil, pigment on canvas, 110.0 x 105.0 cm