Michaela Kölmel

The artist transformed these materials into wall- and floor-related works. She also used them in site-specific productions to connect spaces and generate unusual fields of perception (Installation MultiMediale 2 and ZKM 1992, Installation Orgelhalle 1994, Installation Galerie Rottloff, 2006). Using materials that reflect light, Michaela Kölmel created complex sensorial spaces of high intensity with simple means; her contained, dense formal language opens up complex dialogues between the work, the viewer and the space.

From 1980 to 1986 she studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe under Prof. Hiromi Akiyama and Prof. David Lauer. She was awarded the Graduate Scholarship of the State of Baden-Württemberg. Further scholarships took her to the Cité des Arts in Paris (1992). She also received a lectureship at the University of Pforzheim (1995/99) and in Ahrenshoop (2000), funded by the Kunstfonds Berlin. In 2002, Michaela Kölmel became a professor at Mainz University of Applied Sciences where she taught the course Interior Design, Sculpture, Drawing and Art History until her death in 2007.

Her work is determined by concept, process and material. Working in the tradition of minimalism prominent in the 1960s, she explored complexity found in the simple and elemental. Her work examined the contrast between forms with a clear and unspectacular exterior and those with a mysterious, luminous interior, using such materials as highly polished copper tubes, stainless-steel sheets and mirror glass.

Michaela Kölmel (1956 - 2007) was a German artist and university professor.