Nicole Wermer ’s material simplicity in abstract representation, powerfully expressing feminine ideas through surprising material. She explores current ideas about female materiality theory. Perhaps, the fur female coats imply femininity, masculine from the cantilevered tubular steel form. This comes from the softness and silkiness, the previous owners. These materiality ideas of male and female representation are societal and historical but do they exist in the same form today? What is the meaning of hard surfaces to soft and curves to straight? Warmers representation of ritual social interactions is a perhaps a feminine mark on sociality and culture.
I am interested in ways that materials can imply meaning. The ‘clinical’ reading of my work in group crib was something that I wasn’t really interested in and I am now looking at ways to use the same materials (mirror, acetate) in a way that doesn’t imply the medical/clinical of the objects themselves. This is difficult, as backlit acetate with human representation on it is hard to skew in any other way besides the medical. Werner uses a simple combination of materials, found objects, tied together in a subtle but probing way that directly implies absence of human, social interaction, architecture and society.
Nicole Wermers' exhibition Infrastruktur ('Infrastructure') looks at the structures of ritualised social relations in general and at the material objects through which these relations are communicated in particular….The coats hang as if their owners had left the room, a coded fleeting ritual marking their absence and their 'ownership' of the chair and its 'place' as one would do in a public space.” David Bussel
