Margret Schopka

Margret Schopka is an installation artist, mixed media painter, and photographer who has exhibited consistently and extensively across Europe since 1983. Countries Margret has exhibited include Germany, Iceland, Poland, Thailand, Hungary, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, and Ukraine. She has been featured in 33 solo exhibitions since 2000. Recent solo exhibitions in Germany include PANKEBOOK in Berlin, Galerie Schröder and Dörr in Bergisch Gladbach and Maternushaus in Cologne. Margret has received various recognition for her art including duel awards by the city of Bergisch Gladbach for environmental awareness and a lifetime achievement award.

Margret’s work often entails interactions and interpretations of environments both natural and interior / industrial in aspect. She often creates intricate sand art with rug-like patterns literally poured on the floor of natural environments, in living rooms, formal sitting areas, and industrial zones. The mixed media paintings appear to be done on large pieces of thick and rough recycled paper or paper-like material and often portraying close ups of nature which sometimes resembled mashed up leaves, twigs, and earth. She creates installations mixing both natural and manufactured elements such as wrapping torn pieces of foliage in plastic. Her sand art installations are sometimes performed on breathtaking and rare scenery such as land geysers and landscapes containing unrefined salt deposits.

Westfjorde / Island (pictured above) remains an installation piece of sand art poured and designed onto an unfamiliar landscape of what could be interpreted as a lake shore filled with salt or lime deposits. A pristine pale white landscape lays upon the composition while hints of darkness in small distant mountains and the black sand in the foreground for which Margret has poured her creativity on. The design reflects florals and intricate foliage reminiscent of French Rococo furniture or wallpaper. Unlike most of her installations, the sand art is minimally applied almost as if melting into the landscape like a natural aspect of nature.

Tausendblumenteppich, Rückseite von Industrieteppichboden collagiert mit Blütenblättern (pictured above) portrays a uniqueness within her body of work as the paintings resembles both her intricate sand installations and foliage paintings at the same time. Spread out across the surface we may find what appears to be mashed up foliage like crushed up flowers and leaves, as if smeared across the paper. With a successful integration of elegant rug-like designs, we are left with an aesthetically pleasing work which reflects nature, design, and fusions of representations and interpretations of the natural world.

Margret Schopka reflects artistry as complex as her resume. She creates unfamiliar works and imposes herself onto environments in a safe and respectful manner to accentuate the beauty and majesty of space, both natural and manufactured. With a deep intellectual understanding of image-making and a multifaceted and multidisciplinary approach to art, Margret forces the viewer to pause and contemplate the meaning of her intricate designs and machinations of improvised nature collages. The article serves as a retrospective of an astonishing career and an artist who creates breathtaking analysis of her surroundings.