Volume 10 Issue 19 | Spring 2024
by Christabel Stewart

Sophie von Hellermann has described the process of her paintings as “projections” that must be quickly and deftly applied; they are “an idea projected from my mind and executed quickly”. Functioning like the opposite of entertainment companies who use well-known paintings to ethereal (so-called immersive) effect, she compresses moments of movement into the static. In a solo booth with Pilar Corrias at Frieze London 2023, von Hellermann found herself in a strangely apt setting. In a single morning before the fair opened, the German-born artist (whose studio is based in Margate), took to the walls of the booth, filling white surfaces with colourful brushy swathes erected atop a specially designed carpet, a backdrop for a series of nine paintings inspired by Dreamland, the century-old amusement park in Margate. Paintings, dotted with people riding Ferris wheels, swings and enjoying charms of the seaside town, convey the artist’s characteristic ethereal lightness and offer hints of von Hellermann’s historical inspirations, including Turner’s watery styles – another artist enchanted by Margate’s seaside charm.