Carmen Lehmann consistently places squares, rectangles or cubes at the centre of her paintings – often broadly arranged, some singular, some layered, once two-dimensional, extensive, then again physical, once reposing, then again vibrating, without contours or defined with a powerful stroke.

These elements, at rest in themselves, separate the foreground from the more withdrawn background and breathe wide open space. An objectless world without creatures, without vegetation, silently breathing, opens up and tempts us to let any effort of description speak of absence, of omission, of reduction. The restriction to few essential forms and to the once delicately, once powerfully nuanced colourfulness, evoke moods of landscapes, architecture, even still lives. The objects are here, restful, emitting silence. Not being pushed towards anything, they begin to speak. The balanced presence of Carmen Lehmann’s paintings invites the viewer into a calm, suspended atmosphere. Their meaning is revealed in the sensuality of the depicted and its depiction, for “la pittura è cosa mentale” (Giorgio Morandi).

Dieter Meile, art historian