Kirsten Hutsch

Kirsten Hutsch’s recent work explores the complex relationship between the real and the image. Through a variety of media, her practice examines the nature of human perception and the substance of reality. The works question the essential reality of the physical object versus the inherently artificial nature of its depiction. In doing so, they allow the object to manifest in its actual, material, and sensory ambiguity.

Series Overview

1. Inventory Studio Series
Rooted in a centuries-old tradition of artists depicting their studios, this series seeks to capture the essence of the studio or residency environment. It is created through a unique process — frottage — in which objects and studio interiors leave direct impressions on primed linen. The result is a “mechanical archive”: ghostlike images that preserve tangible memories of space and material presence. These works exist between reality and representation, echoing the ambiguity inherent in perception and memory.

2. Linen / Stone Series
The Linen series explores the materiality of the canvas itself. Each piece involves painstakingly repainting a primed linen canvas thread by thread. This results in a paradoxical anti-image, in which the subject (the linen) coincides with the medium used to depict it. These autological works collapse the boundary between object and image, prompting reflection on how art both mirrors and constitutes reality.
The Stone sculptures extend this inquiry into the sculptural domain. Though they resemble casual arrangements of pebbles, the sculpture is carved from a single block of stone. This paradox — the natural appearance versus the artificial unity — highlights the inseparability of object and representation, and evokes the entanglement of observer and observed in constructing what we perceive as real.

3. Taped Paintings
The Taped Paintings are assemblages of multiple canvases, physically bound together with archival tape. These works hover between object and image, illusion and materiality. The tape functions both as a visual line and as a pragmatic joining device, unifying structural and pictorial elements. The result is a dynamic whole that resists fixed interpretation, caught in a space between fragmentation and cohesion.

4. Transferred Gesso Series
This series investigates the tension between creation and destruction, and the duality of reality and representation. Beginning with a white, gessoed canvas, the surface is eroded to reveal the raw linen beneath — an act resembling excavation. The removed gesso fragments are then reassembled onto a second, unprimed canvas, forming a new image. This process both reveals the material foundation and creates a representation, reflecting a practice in which reality and its image emerge from the same gesture.