For her exhibition “Cabinet of Smokes and Burns,” Cologne, Germany based artist Sarah Szczesny examines the format of painting through various materials and a wide range of media, including canvas framed paintings, as well as textile, video, and paper works.

In her work, Sarah Szczesny does not limit herself to the format of the classic panel painting, she intervenes in video and film sequences and generates collage-like moving paintings. The exhibited works are dedicated to the ephemeral: Small gestures are endlessly strung together in the visual material. The painting moves into videos; onto fabrics, it is animated, mounted over photography and film and flows fragilely through the space without a frame. Real life and the handmade coexist or merge.

“Painting will need to do all sorts of crazy wonderful things, you know, so that it doesn't restrict me,” the title of Sarah Szczesny's video work and projection, references an animation sequence from her 2023 work “The gown will need to do all sorts of crazy wonderful things, you know, so that it doesn't restrict me.” For this piece, Szczesny re-edited and looped a scene from Douglas Keeve’s documentary film “Unzipped”. In the scene, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi meets singer and actress Eartha Kitt to discuss an evening gown designed for her. In response, Kitt performs a spontaneous dance, expressing her desire for freedom. Szczesny emphatically amplifies these demands in her video work, one of seven video chapters.

 In 2024, Szczesny spent three months in Istanbul as part of the Galata Atelier Residency, followed by one month at CCA Andratx in November of the same year. During her travels, research, and work, she developed this animation series alongside a new collection of textile works. She explored locally and traditionally manufactured linen and silk fabrics from Turkey, examining dyeing techniques. One notable fabric originates from Şile, a coastal village near Istanbul, where woven materials are washed in the waters of the Black Sea. Due to the low salt content of the water, the fabric emerges from the process with a delicately folded, textured surface.

These oversized fabric paintings are also feature in her video collages. In the video chapter “Joy (The End)”, Szczesny filmed her friend and fellow painter Philipp Joy Reinhardt by the Black Sea, near Istanbul. She brings the painted fabric back to its origin, draping it over her friend, who vanishes behind the artwork.

Later, in Mallorca, she reworked printed photographs of that fleeting moment using gouache and ink, meticulously painting frame by frame and dividing the sequence into 182 sheets of paper.