A large part of the artistic practice of Martina Sauter (b. 1974, living and working in Düsseldorf) consists of viewing moving images. She freezes and isolates grainy film stills – in her earlier work mainly from Hitchcock's Hollywood classics – and adds a new layer in the form of her own photographic work. In this way she adds new characters; this isolated and slightly enlarged detail plays the lead role in a new story that engages the viewer's sense of curiosity.

Sauter's collages turn the film's original editing inside-out. While a film director meticulously connects every detail to a harmonious vessel of meaning, Sauter unravels the same details to arrive at a deconstructed and adapted cinematic image that further increases the cinematic tension. In other works she changes the cinematic image by incorporating small strips of coloured paper with almost surgical precision. The reverse side of these works reveals layered, abstract collages that are on the one hand a negative of, and on the other hand in juxtaposition with, the figurative front side. It is precisely this ambiguity to which the title of Sauter's new exhibition (Duplications and Differences) refers.

Artists: Martina Sauter