Anne Wölk

Anne Wölk (born 1982) is a German painter who lives and works in Berlin. She is best known for her paintings of romantic starscapes and use of popular culture and science fiction imagery that hint at ideas of a cosmic "life beyond Earth". Romanticism and utopia are key themes in her work, and she is well regarded among contemporary conceptual and figurative artists in Berlin. Jena was the center for optics technology and lasers in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Deciding from age 15 to become a painter, she developed interest in space landscapes from the Jena Planetarium's cosmic shows of night sky simulations. Her work is now heavily informed by science fiction movies and books, such as Neuromancer by William Gibson, which predicts an inhabitable cyberspace. Wölk's career took a surprising kick-start at the age of 24 when her painting Dog Girl (2006) was purchased by the Elgiz Museum and shown alongside well-established artists such as Cindy Sherman, Tracey Emin and Sarah Morris. Wölk is embedded in the contemporary art scene of Berlin, Germany while selling, exhibiting and working internationally.

Wölk's pieces are also strongly symbolic of the future of science and technology, using information from the advances in satellite and camera technology. While her series Starscapes, 2018–2010, pushed for a visual reality of what extraterrestrial colonies could look like: a lifestyle of starry skies, LED lighting and cinematic embrace. and the artist-in-residence grant in Goriska Brda, Slovenia awarded by the German Embassy, 2014.

Wölk has exhibited alongside other well known contemporary artists such as Robert Rasuchenberg, Johannes Wohnseifer, Azade Köker, and Stephan Balkenhol. Wölk currently is represented by 5 Pieces Gallery, Bern, Switzerland and Alfa Gallery, Miami, USA. She also has been professionally recognised through workshops and lectures she has offered, and has featured in podcasts and coordinating education programmes. Since 2008, Wölk has been a senior teacher in the Painting Department at the Fine Art Faculty of Jugendkunstschule in Pankow, Berlin.

Collections

Proje 4L, Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey. CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea. Collection of ArtSuites Hotel Group Istanbul/Bodrum, Turkey. The Sketchbook Project, Brooklyn Art Library, New York, USA. Adham El-Khalil Art Collection, Beirut, Lebanon. Max Winzer Art Collection, Coburg, Germany. Andreas Wagner Art Collection, Dresden, Germany.