texts

Studio Wolffia: Party-coloured and Prismatic *

In the diptych painting this, follows that, follows this (2024) by Studio Wolffia, a constellation of nonmimetic shapes in bright kaleidoscopic hues dance dynamically across each canvas. This use of form, colour, and pattern is characteristic of the artist’s work and the result of a deeply intuitive process. Her paintings are personal cosmologies that reflect a need to make sense of her inner thoughts, or to create order from chaos. This impulse to order can be most keenly seen in how each shape is carefully balanced across the picture plane – a sharp edge softened by a rounded form, for example – creating a harmonious composition. It is in her handling of colour, however, where the power of the work lies. Her arrangement of both complementary and contrastive colours imbue each work with such intense chromatic vibrancy that they radiate outwards with joy.

Studio Wolffia’s works on canvas have recently become more complex as she has further honed her painterly language. Her compositions of largely separated forms have developed into paintings such as Wander and Wonder (2025). Here, while her alphabet of shapes and patterns are still in play, their edges are softer and the composition looser. A greater fluidity is achieved by allowing an overlay of shape and colour, covering the full surface of the picture. Further to this, she has widened the breadth of materials – incorporating oils, acrylics, pastels, and crayons into her paintings, while also experimenting in three dimensions with wood and ceramic. The new sculptural works are still wall-based but are now comprised of individual shapes made from hand-painted wood or stained porcelain. When brought together in their intricate arrangements, these elements are transformed into lyrical free forms that fizz and vibrate with each other, creating a feeling of endless movement. This new direction fits into the artist’s instinctual way of working – allowing herself to be led by the material and as such push the limits of the artistic vocabulary she has established.

Studio Wolffia’s works are truly abstract – their forms are not distilled from nature or another aspect of the real world but instead appeal directly to our senses and encourage emotional responses. They are a living example of the philosophy of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who first recognised colour’s psychological significance in his book ‘Theory of Colours’ (1810). More recently, the poet Lisa Robertson has written that ‘colour, like a hormone, acts across, embarrasses, seduces. It stimulates the juicy interval in which emotion and sentiment twist.’ Studio Wolffia’s practice finds a home in this sentence.

The artist’s approach to colour is reflective of her own internal, resilient optimism, which she seeks to evoke in others. Colour is largely non-hierarchical – at once deeply personal and totally universal. Studio Wolffia’s works are visually immediate, open, accessible and inherently transmissible in all of their party-coloured and prismatic glory.

Text by Kyla McDonald

Berlin, 2025

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Small But Mighty

The desire to make sense of the world is an innately human urge. As the English philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead wrote in Dialogues “Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.” Studio Wolffia’s work is a perfect illustration of this maxim. Abstract artworks manifesting in paintings, textiles and objects that explore and present the patterns of our daily existence. The artist notes, “All I’m seeing everywhere is pattern. As soon as I shut my eyes at night. Train seat fabric, with a shopping bag sat on top. Trees and buildings, sofas and floors.” This is work that makes us playfully reimagine perception itself.

Wolffia is the name of the smallest flowering plant species on earth. Something modest whose impact grows by repetition and in numbers. A flower that is small but effective. Working as a studio named after the flower, rather than under her own name, Emily Jackson’s intention is to embrace the breadth of medium and stay open for future collaboration. An opportunity to look beyond the canvas. There is also an emotional imperative – to spread joy.

The current show focuses on Studio Wolffia’s varied approach to textiles. “I was looking for something deeper, more enveloping, more tactile and absorbing,” Jackson explains. Cue art that curves, wraps and moves rather than the static structure of a painting or more rigid sculptural object. The work here, in particular, uses the method of tufting, a technique where yarn is looped and cut using a gun-like machine. The resulting objects are completely unique. They can never be repeated. They have their own sense of life.

The new body of work brought together here, cohesively presents an entry in Studio Wolffia’s visual language. Something central is shape and form. These abstract curves and lines, blobs and cut outs brim with energy. Like cells in a petri dish wrestling for attention and presence. To the artist these forms reflect thoughts, feelings and moments. The canvas an internal and external mirror of the artist’s now – both psychologically and emotionally. The titles of the work – drawn from the artist’s journals – are equally personal and symbolic.

Colour is also central in Studio Wolffia’s work. Her palette is fearless yet balanced. A bold fusion of the full pop spectrum, from acid pinks to rich royal blues, matte peaches to textured mustards. There is an ease of approach here, echoed in how the images are made - in fast layers. This is work about play and immediacy rather than over analysis. We are presented with a sense of visual instinct.

Abstraction is the methodology that holds the practise together. It allows the artist true freedom. A way to represent both process and subject at the same time. “It is a true reflection of that exact moment and open for anyone to interpret as they see fit,” she considers. The more abstract the image or content is, the more it forms a mirror to our inner selves. It is an aesthetic that does not need verbal interpretation. It can be taken immediately, instinctively. The abstract here is a way of connecting and bringing the viewer in. Something we can effortlessly engage with. Work that exudes delight.

Francesca Gavin

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