As a kid I found a lot of comfort in throwing myself into my own made-up fantasy worlds – worlds that, in hinsight, were so weird that they’re hardly comprehendable for now. Still, they stuck with me. My urge to create universes and creatures manifests in my current paintings, now used as tools to explore the experience of womanhood and the feeling of living in times that feel less and less tangible. Sometimes I like to refer to the things that emerge on my canvases as “chimeras”. I think the term does a good job of capturing the balancing act between familiarity and the unknown, the uncomfortable, the tension between the urge to shy away and curiousness, maybe even affection, for the weird entity in front of us.
Merle Pappelbaum (*2002) grew up in Berlin. Currently, she’s studying Painting at the HfBK Hamburg in the class of Anselm Reyle. With a background in drawing, she now mostly uses oil paint to bring her ideas to live, but also explores other mediums like wax and photography.