The exhibition Head to Head brings together the artists Laura Bruce and Heidi Sill in a fascinating dialogue. In their joint work, the boundaries between individual styles and collective image design are blurred. Through a year-long artistic experiment with large-format sketchbooks, they create a fascinating visual world that is now on display at the Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen 1867.
Image gallery
Horse and Rainbow 2024, vers Medien, 60 x 40 cm, Laura Bruce, Heidi Sill
For a whole year, the two artists Laura Bruce and Heidi Sill worked on a unique art project: two large-format drawing books with about 200 pages that they passed back and forth between them. Using ink, watercolour, chalk and a wide variety of other materials, they layered lines and areas on top of each other, creating new visual worlds and telling stories. They experimented with pasted-over papers, used translucent backs as creative templates, and in doing so developed a multi-layered, exciting visual language.
The individual handwritings merge, authorship becomes unrecognisable – a fascinating interplay that explores the boundaries between individual and collaborative artistic work.
The exhibition is complemented by selected sheets from the drawing books, which can be purchased as editions. In addition, Bruce and Sill present their own individual works, which illustrate their independent artistic expression. In their drawings and collages, narrative, figuration and humour are combined with a profound examination of physicality and constructions of reality.
The artists
Laura Bruce (1959, East Orange, New Jersey) has been living and working in Berlin since 1990. She studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and obtained her Master of Fine Arts at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Bruce is known for her large-format black-and-white graphite drawings, as well as for her current works in coloured pencil and ceramics. Her works are represented in important collections such as the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin and the Berlinische Galerie.
Heidi Sill (in Fürth, Bavaria) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg and was a scholarship holder at the Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques in Paris. In her work, she deals with the fragility of the human body and questions standardised body images. Her works have been shown at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, the Palais de Tokyo (Paris) and the German Bundestag, among others.
The Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen 1867: Since its founding in 1867, the VdBK 1867 has been committed to the visibility of female artists. Once pioneers in enabling women to receive an artistic education, the association continues this mission today with its exhibition programme. In its new premises in Berlin-Schöneberg, historical and contemporary art by women is presented.
Dates
- Opening: Thursday, 3 April 2025, 6 p.m. Welcome by the board of the VdBK 1867
- Artist Talk: Thursday, 10 April 2025, 7 p.m. Talk with Nicola Kuhn (art critic, feature editor of the Tagesspiegel) and the artists
- Finissage & Gallery Weekend: Sunday, 4 May 2025, 2–7 pmWith Prosecco and the artists
