Portraits of Conny Maier for Art|Basel.com
Why painter Conny Maier traded Berlin for a Portuguese surfing hotspot. In her studio in Peniche, the German artist merges family narratives, unconventional figures, and history in wall-sized works.
There has been a steady flow of Central Europeans settling in Portugal in the last few years, chasing sunshine, five-euro meals, and a slower pace for their work-from-home routines. They choose the capital, Lisbon, or the warmth of the Algarve. I am going in the opposite direction, a hundred kilometers north of Lisbon, to pay a visit to the German artist Conny Maier, who has a studio in the fishing and surfing town of Peniche. It is an unexpected destination for a visit to an expat: Peniche is a small, rocky peninsula within a peninsula, known mainly by locals.
In the picture of the studio Maier sent me, there is a minuscule house in the foreground, almost covered by a colorful string of clothes drying in the white sun. As I leave, I see a woman laboring away in the dark, reminiscent of times gone by, of Maier’s figures with their oversized headscarves. But I may be imagining this; I may be adding yet another layer to Maier’s polysemic paintings.
Conny Maier is represented by Société (Berlin) and Ruttkowski;68 (Cologne, Paris, Düsseldorf, New York). Conny Maier’s first comprehensive institutional exhibition, ‘Beautiful Disasters’, curated by Udo Kittelmann, will be on view at the Langen Foundation in Neuss, Germany from September 3, 2023 to April 7, 2024.
Joana P.R. Neves is a Portuguese, London-based independent writer and curator. She is currently writing a book titled Female Drawing Machines, which will be published by Bloomsbury.
Published on August 15, 2023.
All photos and videos by Carolina Pimenta for Art Basel.
