Martina Nitsche is a Berlin-based artist using a variety of digital and analog manipulation techniques and mixed media to convey her ideas about the relationship between self, society, and the trajectory of humanity. Born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1962, Nitsche moved to the US in 1989 to study photography at San Francisco State University. In 1990 she enrolled at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, DC. While studying there, she was simultaneously working for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as a photographer, capturing the DC political scene in the early 1990s.
It was when she moved to New York in 1993 to study under Larry Fink and Harry Bowers at the School of Visual Arts (MFA) that her focus significantly changed and led to Nitsche’s first major body of work – a series of stunning black and white abstract portraits of dissected anatomical figures, organs, and medical maps of veins. The images mirror the core of the fractured self at the end of the 20th century. Unimpeded consumerism and environmental degradation were becoming the norm, alienating humanity from its true essence and connection to the spiritual. Nitsche’s principal concern with these images was to reconnect the human to the sacredness of self and encourage inward contemplation, stripping away the façade created by our material values and obsession with external appearances at any cost.
Her second body of work (2006-2015) was a series of colorful and visceral images created using chemical photo emulsion and 61 layers of digital manipulation to give the effect of the human cellular structure. The images pay witness to the explosion of an individual’s will against conventions and external restraints. The viewer is taken inward to the microscopic cellular level of what it is to be human in an age when control is slipping away in the face of humanity’s shifting paradigms.
Nitsche’s recent work examines society as a whole, investigating how we collectively think about truth and identity, as we lose our autonomy amid rapid technological advancement. The images of digitally manipulated groups of people represent an artificial wandering between reality and fantasy, as we maintain the illusion of control over ourselves and the course of humanity. The progress that we so adamantly pushed for in previous decades has, in many ways, seized control of us, as we near the age of singularity.
Martina Nitsche
Born 1962 in Hamburg, Germany. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
EDUCATION
1993-1996 M.F.A., Photography, Video and Related Media. School of Visual Arts, New York
EXHIBITIONS
2020 “Georges Bergès Gallery Berlin”, Winter Group Show Berlin, (February 20 – current)
2020 “Georges Bergès Gallery New York City”, Winter Group Show New York, (February 6 – March 14)
2019 “Georges Bergès Gallery in Berlin”, Group Exhibition, Berlin, (November 7 – December 15)
2018 “Weltgefühl”, Gallery Rowland Kutschera, Group Exhibition, Berlin
2017 “Art Kreuzberg 2018”, Open Studio and Galleries, Berlin
2016"Inside Outside", Berlin
2015 “Verlorene Welten”, Gallery Rowland /Kutschera, Group Exhibition, Berlin,
2014 “Wildness”, Artgeschoss Gallery, Group Exhibition, Berlin
2013 "Dissolution”, Cerna Labut, Prague, Solo Exhibition, Czech Republic
2012 “Urban Illusion”, Sotheby International Berlin, Solo Exhibition, Berlin,
2010 “Die Bilder der anderen- ein Trialog”, Galerie Rowland/Kutschera, Group Exhibition, Berlin,
2009 “Beyond Curiosity”, Galerie Rowland/Kutschera, Group Exhibition, Berlin, [catalogue
2008 “Scope”, Groehl, Solo Exhibition, Hamburg
2008 “Tactility in Abstraction”, Hospitz Gallery Bregenz, Solo Exhibition, Bregenz, Austria,
2005 “34 Artists Live”, Y.O.H. Gallery, Group Exhibition, Yonkers-on Hudson, (June 5 – August 20)
2004 “Toastartwalk”, Tribeca Open Artist Studio, New York, (April 30 – May 2, 2005)
2002 “The Eternal Consciousness”, Brown Gallery, New York, (October 9 – November 20)
2002 “Tactility in Abstraction” Julie Chang & Angell Hall Productions, New York, (December 11)
2002 “Toastartwalk”, Tribeca Open Artist Studio, New York, (April 24 – April 26)
1999 "Touring International 6th Annual NY Digital Salon” Circulo de Bellas Artes” Madrid,
1999 "Triennale di Milano", Group Exhibition, Milan, (February 26 – March 15)
1999 "Centre de Cultura Contemporania", Group Exhibition, Barcelona (March 22 – April 18)
1999 "Sala de Exposiciones CAM”, Group Exhibition, Alicante, (April 26 – May 23)
1997 “Fith Annual NY Digital Salon“, Visual Arts Museum, Group Exhibition, New York City,
1996 “MFA Thesis Show”, Visual Arts Museum, Group Exhibition, New York City, (June 1996 )
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2010 Press Broadcast, Trialog in Galerie Rowland Kutschera, Berlin, Germany
2009 Offenes Presseportal News,"Beyond Curiosity", Berlin, Germany
1998 Carlos Mural, Elsustituye al lienzo, El Mundo, 1998, USA
1998 Leonardo, Cambridge, MIT Press, Volume 31, No.5, 1998, USA 1998
1998 Juan Carlos Rodriquez, El Salon de Arte, La Vanguardia, Dec.1998, USA
1997 J.M.Parreno, ABC de las artes, Dec.1997
1997 Leonardo, Cambridge, MIT Press, Volume 30, No.5, 1997, USA
1997 Anthony Ramirez, 5th Digital Salon: the winners are..., New York Times,
1997 ZDF TV Program, Artist around the world, Documentary of Martina Nitsche
SELECTED COLLECITONS
Kunstquartier Hospiz, St. Christoph, Bregenz, Austria
Reederei Opielok, Hamburg, Germany
Ben Fried, New York
Barbara Jones, New York
Heidrun Adler, Hamburg, Germany
Jana Alfery, Prague, Czech Republic
Alcocer Collection, New York Koehnk, Hamburg, Germany
Kutschera, Berlin, Germany
