n Gütschow’s most recent series, color landscapes have given way to a grayscale series of urban settings. In these, she posits another world, this one darker and more sinister than the idyllic picnic scenes of her landscapes. Mixing architectural elements taken from buildings across Europe, Japan and the United States, and barren landscapes, she constructs urban wastelands, rife with post-apocalyptic tension. She states of the work, “They could be a view into the future where modernistic architecture is a wrecked background with some extant urban elements.” The human figures Gütschow includes in these works are either homeless people or tourists, as placeless as the constructed spaces they occupy. Idle amidst the hodgepodge of futuristic concrete structures and abandoned lots, the people appear as survivors in a landscape devoid of visual or physical comfort.
Beate Gütschow: LS/S
Gütschow’s panoramic color landscapes are digital assemblages of details from the artist’s archive of images of trees, fields, knolls, clouds, people, and shadows. The interface between separate elements is invisible and seamless, however, the colors are eerily saturated and the use of light and shadow often contradictory.
