BERLIN — After a successful gallery showing titled “Color Without Consequence,” acclaimed abstract painter Elise Koerner declared her art is not based on emotions, objects, or any earthly thing because, in her words, “none of this is real.” Koerner insists that her creative process involves listening to voids and interpreting the silence of unformed dimensions.
Critics initially praised Koerner’s color choices and movement, unaware she wasn’t referencing internal states or experiences. “If it accidentally resembles a thought or table leg, I repaint it,” she told reporters while rearranging invisible furniture. She refers to paint as “manifested nonsense” and brushes as “illusion-sticks.” Her studio features a sign reading, No Concepts Past This Point.
Her most recent work, “Untitled Seventy-Three (Definitely Not a Feeling),” sold for €22,000 to a collector who described it as “evocative of a lost childhood.” Upon hearing this, Koerner reportedly wept with laughter for eighteen straight minutes, then ate a gallery card. The piece consists of thirty-eight brushstrokes and one deeply felt rejection of permanence. Some say it smells faintly of disbelief.
When asked if her art is meant to challenge perception, Koerner replied, “Perception is a bourgeois hallucination.” She maintains that artistic intention is just light misbehaving in human meat brains. She does not recognize fans, critics, or time. Her favorite material is “questionably present” canvas, which she claims only exists because she forgot to disbelieve it this morning.
Koerner’s next show, “I Don’t Even Know What Shapes Are,” opens this fall in Vienna, featuring twelve pieces painted with closed eyes and zero context. Visitors are encouraged to check their identities at the door and avoid forming conclusions. Said one curator, “We don’t expect to sell anything. Which is apparently the point.”
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