Nadine Fecht

To Nadine Fecht, art means exchanging and expressing one’s opinions. Her drawings are processes through which she explores the boundaries of what can be visualised – including her own limitations. This makes her works both poetic and political. 

In her series Unfinished Business, Nadine Fecht investigates the possibilities of visually representing sounds, opinions and statements. A megaphone, reminiscent of public rallies or protests, is placed at the centre of each drawing. Fecht has torn or cut these megaphones from newspapers and magazines, then added drawings that show what might have been announced through them, using a broad variety of colours, forms and techniques. The viewer is invited to ask: What was said through this megaphone? What was the intention behind the words? Were they loud, threatening or encouraging? What drove these people to raise their voices publicly? 

In the three works from the series Multitude (Die Vielen als Viele), Fecht explores what it means to live in a democracy – to be both an individual and yet part of a larger community. For these drawings, 2,400 colourful ballpoint pens were used simultaneously. Two people had to grasp the bundle of pens together and guide them over the paper. Every single movement and change of direction required negotiation and compromise. In a broader sense, each pen represents one voice, one individual. The collaborative process of creating these drawings, as well as the drawings themselves, reflect the nature of democracy, which uses human and communal diversity to achieve the best possible results – always based on the premise that we communicate with one another.