Biography

“A painting should resonate and be imbued with an inner glow.”
Wassily Kandinsky
Short Biography
The love of art and the need to express myself through colours and compositions have always accompanied me. Photographs, nature drawings, nude and portrait painting developed while training as a textile and design engineer have helped me develop a handwriting that is as precise artistically as it is sound on an artisanal level. Like many artists of the 20th and 21st century, I have turned from figurative painting first to collage and then to abstraction.
I reduce to the essential: shapes and the substance of colours. My means of expression are surface structures and textures, strong contrasts, at times expressive colour choices and play with colour surfaces that partly conceal, partly reveal what lies beneath. In order for the complexity and optical depth of the paintings to become perceptible, parts of the canvas remain open. To apply layers, I use paintbrushes and palette knives, oil crayons, pencil and pigments.
Travelling is my source of inspiration: I am guided by memories of a place’s colours, its nature, particular patterns of light and shadow. My artistic practice is a painted response to the disrespect of the environment and the fast pace of the increasingly digitalized world; an expression of my desire that we develop respect for the surrounding world and that we recognize the urgency of a sustainable protection of nature. The paintings’ titles refer to those sources of inspiration, subject areas and concerns. More importantly, though, my colour worlds are meant to invite viewers to go on a sensuous journey of discovery and to inspire thoughts and ideas of their own.
Sonja Kalb, 2021
Current & Upcoming
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FORGOTTEN REALITIES
Agnes Toth, Alexandra Westermark, Arjeta Mala, Belinha Silva, Cathy Ghyoot, Conie Senac, Dan Harnett, Darko Lesjak, Garrick Arnold, Jonathan Le Roux, Karen Chappelow, Kari Veastad, Kathrin Broden, Mara Torres León, Michael Mihangel, Miu Shinoda, Nicola Heim, Paulie X, Sandrine Langlade, Sonja Kalb, Susana Casillas, Veronica Villareal Sada
27. Mai 2022 – 27. Juni 2022
Vernissage Freitag, 27. Mai 2022, 18:00
Monat Gallery
Calle de Estudios 7
28012 Madrid
SP
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OpenArtCode Tokyo
27 September – 5 Oktober 2022
Opening on 27 September 2022
Metropolitan Art Museum
8-36 Uenokoen,Taito City
Tokyo 110-0007
JP
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Abstract Landscape
Bernd C. Dietrich, Stephi Friedrich , Angela Glajcar, Sonja Kalb, Jérémy Lenoir, Alberto Saka, Sascha Nordmeyer, Reiner Seliger, David Speybrouk
4. March 2022 – 10. April 2022
Opening on Friday, 4 March 202, 18:00
Galerie Kellermann
Heinrich-Heine-Allee 12
40212 Düsseldorf
DE
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OpenArtCode Paris
15–20 February 2022
Opening on 15 Februar 2022
Grand Palais Ephémère
Avenue Pierre Loti
Champ-de-Mars
75007 Paris
FR
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Transparenz. Das kleine Format
7 December 2021 – 18 January 2022
Künstlerverein Malkasten
Jacobistraße 6a
40211 Düsseldorf
DE