isabell.alexandra.m[at]gmail.com
Isabell Alexandra Meldner (*1995, Berlin) is an artist and curator based between Berlin, Dresden and elsewhere. She graduated from the Dresden University of Fine Arts in 2025 where she studied with Prof. Susan Philipsz and Prof. Nicole Vögele. In 2022, she was awarded the Artist Advocate Stipend by the Dresden State Art Collection, followed by the Caspar David Friedrich Prize in 2023.
In my artistic practice, I explore the emotional effects of spaces, their states of in-betweenness, our perception of time, and the translation of space into time. Responding to the specific site, context, and spatial character, I develop time-based, room-scale installations combining various media. My focus lies in what emerges between image and text, between individual elements and media, and in relation to their spatial contextualization.
Accordingly, I work primarily in constellations of works. Each work resembles a thought (a sentence) but is redefined anew in relation to the other works and through its installation context (in a text). In this sense, I understand installations as spatially organized sequences of thoughts that resist/evade definite meaning and instead appear as subtle gestures.
My works emerge through intertwining personal experience with phenomenological and metaphysical inquiry. Based on research, I investigate everyday phenomena and abstract documentary autobiographical elements into universal notions of home, dislocation, absence, memory, loss, and disappearance.
Through the integration of daylight and time-based elements, the resulting changes in spatial atmospheres, and the confrontation of different temporalities of objects, I create intimate interiors of emotional reflection. These interiors unfold only through their duration: they do not reveal themselves immediately, but are experienced in individual contemplation. As each interior disappears at the end of an exhibition, the book becomes a means of translating it into a durable medium. As forms of evidence, photography and writing become traces of an everyday world. They are motivated by the loss inherent in the passage of time and the desire to hold it still.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
CURRENT
03.05.– 6.12.26 Papiere, Papiere, Josef-Hegenbarth-Archiv, Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden State Art Collection.
29.04. – 03.05.26 Solutions & Strategies, Klima Biennale Wien.
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, Amplified Insides at the gimp, Berlin.
2017
_ What I See (for OstravaPhotoFestival) at Díra v Provozu, Ostrava.
_ Collective Intersubjectivity at Hidden Gallery, Prague.
GROUP SHOWS
2026
_ Portrait, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden.
_ A single sequence with Yesul Lee, curated by neue kunstfreunde at Haus der Stadtgeschichte, Offenbach a.M.
2025
_ Laufmaschen, interventions at Museum Gunzenhauser, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz.
_ Academy Positions, Positions Art Fair, Berlin.
_ graduation show, Oktogon, Dresden.
_ Mignolino, pinky projects, Dresden.
_ 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, (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 (curated), 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, Hall of the Art Academy of Latvia, Riga.
2021
_ The Sixths Sense, project by Class 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, Museum Humanum, Kulturbrücke, Fratres.
_ Come in - look out, 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 (with Nicolas Prokop, Serhij Ďakiv, OFFOMO) at Invalidovna, Prague.
2016
_ What I see (at DüsseldorfPhotoWeekend2016), Haus der Universität, Düsseldorf.
EDUCATION & SCHOLARSHIPS
2023 Caspar-David-Friedrich Award
2022-2023 Scholarship ‘The Artist Advocat’ by Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
2019-2025 Fine Arts, Dresden University of Fine Arts Dresden.
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.
no photographs or any other material from this website may be used without any written permission by Isabell Alexandra Meldner. copyright © 2026 all rights reserved