Astrid Busch

Astrid Busch was born in Krefeld in 1968 and lives in Berlin and Düsseldorf. She studied fine art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg and at the Berlin Weißensee School of Art, most recently as a master student of Prof. Katharina Grosse.
 

Astrid Busch's work includes installations, photographs, works on paper, objects and moving images. The artist deals with various aspects of photography. Her works refer to found and self-created images that she collects, rephotographs and transforms from specific locations. She often condenses her material into spatial image arrangements, which ultimately result in photographs under complex lighting conditions, which she translates into space on various image carriers or further develops them as sculptures. By folding, bending or even crumpling, each of her works has its own sound. Through this sculptural intervention, the work gains three-dimensionality and can now take up space.
Some of her new motifs were created by overlaying structures created with artificial intelligence.
 

In the series “Mapping Mysteries” and “Sea Territories” the artist expands her preoccupation with ports and container shipping worldwide and the increasing traffic at sea. She develops fictional territories, self-composed areas that are reminiscent of maps, water maps, paths and borders, but are also open to freely composed, painterly images that, contrary to the character of territories, suggest an openness.
In the new series “Honeytrap” she continues the theme of the “Sea Territories” series in an even freer implementation: lines, paths and structures are condensed into map-like compositions. The works invite encounters with unknown spheres in which deception and reality subtly merge. The works capture fleeting moments that evoke unexpected associations. Our perception of space and time is questioned. The artist combines different media and time levels, creating a dense network of references and a variety of possible interpretations.
“Honeytraps” are tactics often used by intelligence or security services to manipulate or blackmail targets through romantic or sexual seduction. This is a covert form of deception to gain information or compromise people.  In relation to her works, the artist points out a level of deception or hidden messages and enigmatic symbols that may lead us on the wrong track or distract/irritate the viewer's thinking.
The motifs are based on compositions that combine your own photographic images with AI-generated shapes and structures. The connection between images generated by an AI image generator and your own photographic images enter into an exciting dialogue. Painterly interventions are integrated into the creation process. Here too, photography is brought close to painting, drawing and objects.

Born 1968 in Krefeld. Lives and works in Berlin.

Grants and residencies

Public collections

Haus des Papiers, Museum für Bildende Papierkunst, Berlin
Hetjens – German Ceramic Museum, Düsseldorf
State Silk Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia
Museum Goch
Artothek Nuremberg
Kunststiftung NRW, Düsseldorf
Kunstsammlung Jena
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein
Technikmuseum Berlin
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Gera 

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions