A text by Reinhard Fritz on the paintings of Anna Lamberz

Should Anna Lamberz’s paintings actually be explained and understood, or is it enough simply to experience them? This question immediately arises upon entering an exhibition of her works. The atmospheres radiated by the paintings reflect a deeply felt spiritual worldview, one that is well worth immersing oneself in.

But first, some biographical notes. Due to a multi-year research assignment of her father, a Byzantinist, Anna Lamberz grew up with her family on Sithonia, a peninsula in northern Greece. The many journeys to excavation sites, museums, and churches with their iconography left a lasting impression on her and sparked a fascination with mythology and the sacred, which continues to influence her artistic work today. Even in early childhood, she undertook long solo walks along the sea and in the mountains. These early encounters with nature and journeys into its solitude shaped her artistic practice and remain both her drive and her inspiration. Her studies in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich were complemented by a postgraduate program in “Artistic Design and Therapy.” Since 1995, she has been deeply engaged with contemporary, traditional African and Afro-Brazilian dance, as well as Butoh, a contemporary Japanese dance form.

When speaking of painting, it is above all about color. Pure painting means using color as the fundamental medium of painting, without creating an illusion. Color thus becomes both the material and the subject of the painting. The intention is to free color from its function. Color itself becomes the object and thereby gains intrinsic value, which constitutes the condition for the autonomy of the painted image as an independent reality. Lawrence Alloway, the well-known New York art critic of the 1960s and ’70s, said of Marc Rothko’s painting: “A painting is not a picture of an experience, it is an experience.”

Let us, then, immerse ourselves in the paintings of Anna Lamberz, for which I spontaneously coined the term “Inner Movement.” In her works, the effect of color becomes tangibly perceptible. The predominantly monochromatic surfaces, occasionally enhanced with complementary and vibrant contrasts, invite the viewer to step into color spaces. The eye recognizes fields of color, exploring forms and indistinct figures within them.

The composition, using simple, often geometric forms, proves to be a clearly visible organizing principle throughout all her works and consistently returns the viewer to a concentrated experience of color. It becomes evident that Anna Lamberz creates atmospheres. The color, according to its vibration, is meant to evoke life, recalling qualities and aspects of humanity and its environment.

The artist explores the diverse spectra that form the “healing” whole. She transforms her elemental experiences from dance, nature, and music into color and form. The expressive power and vibration of color in her paintings evoke sensations in the viewer such as vitality, warmth, excitement, passion, but also calm, security, and balance. Anna Lamberz’s works strive—what I refer to as “inner movement”—with great force toward this level of experience.

The format and dimensions of Anna Lamberz’s paintings are based on the scale of the human body—one could say as far as her arms reach while painting. They therefore require a generous expanse, allowing the viewer to enter the color spaces. The primary materials of the paintings, that is, the colors, include chromoxide green, phthalocyanine green, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, indigo, Paris blue, Indian yellow, light ochre, cinnabar and carmine red, madder lake, natural and burnt umber, and especially gold, which reflects light in a unique way. With these substances, through a steady, cautious painting process that unfolds over time, Anna Lamberz achieves a high pictorial and aesthetic quality in her works.

Munich, May 2011
Reinhard Fritz, Neue Gruppe Haus der Kunst