isabell.alexandra.m@gmail.com
portfolio
Isabell Alexandra Meldner (*1995, Berlin) studies at the Dresden University of Fine Arts under Susan Philipsz and Nicole Vögele. She lives and works between Prague, Dresden, and Berlin. In 2022, she received the Artist Advocate Stipend from the Dresden State Art Collection and was awarded the Caspar-David-Friedrich-Prize in 2023.
In her artistic practice, she combines various media and works into installations, which, in turn, generate new contexts for the works. This results in a relational space, intertwining or opposing individual pieces, their medial conditions, temporalities and titles, while the essence lies in the open space between work, context, and viewer. By questioning the spatial experience in its functional and temporal dimensions, she engages with the space itself in form of subtle interventions. Coming from a photography-like approach, she creates particular states of rooms and encounters that imply a sense of contemplative momentariness. Spaces are conceived rather time based - as situations that resonate with everyday worlds.
Time and temporality become materials, with light referencing the passage of time. Amid an increasingly mobile society, she poetically abstracts questions of ‘home’ and personal feelings of dislocation, longing, and absence arising from distance. Drawing from ordinary phenomena and inspired by the impression of ‘having no time’, she investigates time as a modern construct that deeply shapes our everyday experience.
In her focus on different medial conditions, she reflects how perception and habitual ways of seeing are influenced by the medium itself. Each medium—whether language, projection, or object—carries its own expressive gesture and temporality, in both materiality and perception. As context is essential to her approach, curatorial and artistic practices become inseparable, and collaborative projects are a natural consequence.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
SOLO SHOWS
2023
_ That Space is Made of Time, installation at Residenzschloss, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
_ Time Takes too Long to Last at Caspar-David-Friedrich-Zentrum, Greifswald.
2021
_ Bright Tomorrows, Amplifies Insides at the gimp, Berlin.
2017
_ What I See (for OstravaPhotoFestival) at Díra v Provozu, Ostrava.
_ Collective Intersubjectivity - Hungry German Youth at Hidden Gallery, Prague.
GROUP SHOWS
2025
_ Real eyes realise real lies, Galerie Kunst der Zeit, HfBK Dresden.
2024
_ Dodging the Curve, with Friedrich Herz, Necessaire Space, Vienna.
_ Day in, day out, with Class Philipsz, at Tonspur Passage, Museumsquartier, Vienna.
_ Somewhere it is Night with Leon Michel, Laura Urbanski, Lindiwe Matshikiza, at Galerie ursula Walter, Dresden.
_ Mov.ing in, Galerie Ursula Walter, Dresden.
_ Radio International with Class Philipsz, Glasgow International, Glasgow.
_ Existenz Kapitel 3, Oktogon, Dresden.
_ Romantisch gesehen, Felix Jud & Co, Hamburg.
_ Painting (on site), with Alban Rosenberger and Ivy Tanit, HfBK Dresden.
_ Solar Anus / High Water, group show (co-curated with Mire Lee), HfBK Dresden.
2023
_ Compiling Caspar David, Axel Obiger, Berlin.
_ I can see clearly now the rain is gone. Suddenly, everything makes sense. Not today. with Stefanie Hollerbach and Hanne Jannasch for Senatssaal, HfBK Dresden.
_ Kunst, group show, Weisse Gasse 8, Dresden.
2022
_ Radio International at Manifesta14, Prishtina.
_ How thick is the layer of butter on your bread? with Hanne Jannasch at Exhibit Studio, Vienna.
_ Memories see us, group exhibition at the Hall of the Art Academy of Latvia, Riga.
2021
_ The Sixths Sense, exhibition by Klasse Philipsz at Brühlsche Terasse, HfBK Dresden.
_ Asociace Prostoru: Five Ways/ Pět cest, at Galerie Vltavská, initiated by Umění pro město (GHMP), Prague.
2020
_ Along Buried Trails - Re-searching our environment, collective performance and group exhibition at Museum Humanum, Kulturbrücke, Fratres.
_ Come in - look out, group show at Fotoforum Dresden.
_ Nature, nature let me see, sometimes your trees just hypnotise me, with Nicolas Prokop, Hugo Chmelař, Vojtěch Hlaváček and Noemi Liborova, by Asociace Prsotoru at Cibulka Park, Prague.
2019
_ Daydreaming in Vacuum (group show with Nicolas Prokop, Serhij Ďakiv, OFFOMO) at Invalidovna, Prague.
2016
_ What I see (group exhibition at DüsseldorfPhotoWeekend2016), Haus der Universität, Düsseldorf.
EDUCATION & SCHOLARSHIPS
2023 Caspar-David-Friedrich Award
2022-2023 Scholarship ‘The Artist Advocat’ by Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
since 2019 Fine Arts, Dresden University of Fine Arts Dresden in the class of Susan Philipsz.
2020- 2021 Studio of Sculpture by Dominik Lang and Isabela Grosseová at Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design, Prague.
2017- 2019 Master Studies, Charles University, Prague.
2017- 2018 Scholarship from Česko-německý fond budoucnosti
2017 Bachelor of Arts (Art History, German Language and Literature), University of Cologne.
WORKSHOPS & RESIDENCIES
2024
_ Residency in Maříž, funded by Culture Moves Europe, 2024.
_ Workshop with Mire Lee, international guest professorship at Dresden University of Fine Arts.
2023
_ Summer School Maříž: Spiritual experiment and Collective Habitat in Practice.
_ Workshop with Laura El-Tantawy, international guest professorship at Dresden University of Fine Arts.
2022
_ The Never-Ending Story, workshop with Agnieszka Polska, international guest professorship at Dresden University of Fine Arts.
_ Field Research - Residency in Maříž, 2022.
_ Representation of the symbol of freedom in the public spaces of Budapest, EU4ART short term workshop in sculpture at HUFA, Budapest, 2022.
2021
_ Dimensional changes, EU4ART short term workshop in sculpture at HUFA, Budapest.
_ Sculpture on Sustainability and Inclusion, EU4ART short term workshop in sculpture, ABA Roma.
_ Summer School Maříž: Spiritual experiment and Sustainability in Practice.
2020
_ Residency in Maříž.
2019
_ Summer School Maříž: Spiritual experiment and Art in Practice.
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