The Lechbinska Gallery’s doors open to experience its own past and present. Connections emerge between new and already-known artists of the gallery to create an exhibition focused on being present. The theme of water and nature guides us through a reconnection with ourselves and invites us to take a moment of reflection about fading memories and emerging experiences. Through calm colors, wild and powerful oceans and ancient stories, the exhibition aims to combine different artists, times, feelings and inspirations: a reflection of the first five years of the Lechbinska Gallery.
The dragonfly wings out of glass from Ursula Palla represent nature’s fragility. We are connected to nature and therefore influence its well-being, but are retroactively influenced by it. Palla reminds us to take a step back, remember the past and reflect on our future actions. Taking care of ourselves and our surroundings remains an important step in our lifetimes.
Angela Lyn’s Tree School and Luo Mingjun’s Perched in the Heights represent the calmer side of nature. Detailed trees and singing birds invite us to stand still and observe. The black and white colors bring out a strong contrast and help us focus on the details: The small things that capture timeless beauty.
Luo Mingjun’s magnolias out of her series I walk beside you VI are a soft and loving representation of nature’s beauty. The detailed oil painting stands out with calm colors and soft contrasts. The blooming flowers represent spring and a new beginning. Taking in the paintings details offers the viewer time to notice opening flowers and still closed flower buds: The beauty of what is already here and what is yet to come.
Sophie Bouvier-Ausländer's approach to earth and its past is a more colorful play with forms, part of her series As It Rolled Fifty Thousand Years Ago. She captures water and earth in their colors and various shapes. Han Feng takes part in the theme of water through a more materialistic approach. He thematises water in its most powerful form, the ocean. Han Feng connects with the ocean by moving through it and using its power for himself. His artwork Somewhere in Berlin 36, a surfboard, is a play with materiality and their heritage.
The influence of nature and religion on our daily life is shown by Andrey Krisanov’s How Lightnings of Indra: a person standing in the rain with an umbrella, protecting himself from the Hindu god of weather, Indra. We are dependent on nature's moods but may be able to adapt to them.
Igor Vulokh and Yury Shtapakov both represent earth’s darker, brown tones. Vulokh plays with abstract forms and different materials and techniques, such as prints in the two works called Big Monotype. Shtapakov stands for tradition and the past. The Untitled oil painting from 1969 is the oldest artwork in the exhibition and reflects on mythology and religion. The painting was restored in 2024-25, leading to a transformation from the past to a present display. It is a work that rounds up Lechbinska Gallery's transformation over the past five years: bringing together the past and the present in a space of connection and creation.