Esther Valerie Riegler

Esther Valerie Riegler’s sculptural works always have a strong physical presence. Through her expressive shaping of a wide variety of materials she succeeds in translating often unclear and mostly hidden emotional or environmental states into visible but still ambiguous manifestations, that escape a clear definition but nevertheless have a strong visual and emotional impact on the viewer. “For me, art has very fine sensory purposes. It serves as a means of making things tangible on a non-cognitive level.“ Esther was born in Austria and lived for 8 years in a cohousing project in Austria called Pomali. This experience taught her the importance, but also the challenges of living in community, which she still sees as an important influence today. In 2020 she completed her training as a sculptor at the HTBLA Hallstatt and afterwards studied at the Alanus Kunsthochschule. Currently she studies at the School of fine arts Weißensee in Berlin. In her work she is not averse to any material as long as it is ecologically justifiable. She works with classic sculpting materials such as stone, wood, metal and casting, but also researches mushrooms, earth, snow, salt and more. Thereby examination of the material, the accompanying processes and the organisms involved, is an essential part of her work. She has participated in various international symposia in Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and Norway and has shown her work in group exhibitions in Berlin (Notagallery, Showroom MBzwo, Green Hills Gallery, Salon am Moritzplatz, TXL Berlin, Galerie M, Galerie Panketal), Stuttgart (Kunst Stuttgart International e.V.) and Salzburg (KUNST für KUNST). She currently lives in Berlin and also works in the artist studios of Julia Thurnau, Julian Charrière and Alicja Kwade in order to network.