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CLAUDIA CHASELING
Claudia Chaseling is a German artist, born in Munich in 1973, currently living and working between Berlin, Germany and Canberra, Australia. She is known for developing the practice of Spatial Painting, comprised of canvases and sculptural paintings with mixed media on objects, walls and floors. The artist has exhibited her works in over fifty solo and group exhibitions, notably in the United States, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, and beyond. Recent exhibitions in 2017 include solo exhibitions at Magic Beans Gallery in Berlin, and the Wollongong Art Gallery, Australia, as well as a group exhibition at Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York. The “Verlag für zeitgenössische Kunst und Theorie” published her first extensive monograph in 2016. Chaseling’s work is included in the major survey exhibition and publication “DISSONANCE. Platform Germany” (2022) edited by Mark Gisbourne & Christoph Tannert.
Claudia Chaseling studied at Academy for Visual Arts in Munich, Germany, and Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna, Austria, before graduating in 1999 from the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin, Germany. She received her Masters degree in Visual Arts from both the University of the Arts Berlin, in 2000, and the School of Art, Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, in 2003. In 2019 the artist is completing her PhD in Visual Arts at the School of Art, Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Major grants and scholarships received in Australia and Germany include the DAAD; the Samstag Scholarship; the Studio Award of the Karl Hofer Society; the Australia Council for the Arts Grant in 2014; and the 2015/16 artsACT Project Grant. She has taken part in various international visiting artists programs and artists residencies, including Texas A&M University; Yaddo in New York; the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York City; the Australian National University (ANU); amongst others.
Murphy the Mutant
2013, Video, 13 min 58 sec
Murphy the Mutant is a graphic novel of watercolors animated through video and read out loud by the artist. This seminal work marks the starting point of Chaseling’s enduring focus upon the nuclear chain leading to depleted uranium and its toxic aftermath, which forms the subject of her body of work over the past decade. By means of it’s deceptively naïve drawings, akin to a children’s book, the story of Murphy the Mutant transposes into a paradoxically sweet atomic allegory, the horrific aftermath of the way we wage war in the modern world – namely, the enduring environmental devastation of nuclear waste and munitions. Set in a fictional future, the story refers to what is happening in our world right now. Murphy the Mutant is an imaginary creature deformed by the all too harsh reality of the atomic waste used by armies throughout the world to fight their wars.
International scientific research has proven the irreversible radioactive pollution caused by depleted uranium weapons. This ammunition was first used by the USA in the Gulf war in 1991 and later in Afghanistan, Iraq, former Yugoslavia, Gaza and other countries. The use of these armaments leads to severe deformations, cancer, and death and continues to do so a long time after the wars are over; the radioactive particles have a half-life of 4.5 billion years. When ingested or inhaled these particles change DNA, and in this way remain to affect populations for generations. The USA, France, Israel and the UK are still using these weapons and repeatedly voted against resolutions on behalf of the UN General Assembly that called for a moratorium and, ultimately, a ban of depleted uranium ammunition. Affected communities call its use a silent genocide.
metal 2
2015, Pigments, egg tempera and oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm
Claudia Chaseling’s practice is characterised as Spatial Painting. At once 2- and 3-dimensional, her work encompasses painting, sculpture, and installation; the works leaping off the gallery walls. Chaseling creates swirls of organic from, upside down landscapes with reversed perspective and bright fluorescent wave structures with political content. The imagery of her Spatial Paintings consists of distorted landscapes, estranged places, mutated creatures and plants whose deformation is caused by radioactive poisoning. Her images, often including text and URLs referencing her source materials, are not predictions of some post-apacalyptic future, but rather the result of her research into historic and ongoing ways in which we continue to poison our planet with radioactive materials.
“The painting metal 2 seems at first glance to have a biomorphic abstract dynamic. On a closer look, one can decode explosive forms, grenades and even the contour of a particular war plane. The depicted scene is sourced from photos of a US plane in action shooting depleted uranium munitions above a middle eastern landscape. In the middle of the painting, one can see another layer embedded into the painting: the shape of a depleted uranium rocket. The title of the work refers to this part of the painting and the heavy metal ‘uranium’ used in munitions in wars today.” – Claudia Chaseling
metal 2 has been previously shown in the solo exhibition site-mutative painting at the Magic Beans Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2017).
Publications by Claudia Chaseling
Watch here the Spotlight interview with Claudia Chaseling