In her exhibition LETTERS at the Drawing Room, Helene Appel presents new small- and large-format paintings that place their viewers in everyday and often casual situations that have to do with writing and reading, peeling and washing up. Helene Appel paints banal everyday objects in a spectacular way. She always portrays her subjects in their original size, isolated on an untreated canvas, regardless of whether it is an envelope, car lights or potato peelings. Despite the true-to-life representation of the pictorial objects, reminiscent of classical still lifes, Appel's paintings are characterised by a high degree of abstraction. Through the process of painting, the artist activates the objects she portrays and charges them with an aura of autonomy or agency. In this way, the artist approaches a profound and multifaceted theme in her painting: What is it about "the things" that surround us every day with apparent matter-of-factness? What power do they have over us? Because things represent: they have the power to visualise memories, symbolise social relationships and choreograph our ritual existence.

Helene Appel (*1976, Karlsruhe) studied at the HFBK in Hamburg and at the Royal College of Art in London. In 2011 she received the Goslar Kaiserring Scholarship, and in 2019 the two-year Dorothea Erxleben Scholarship at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig. She lives and works in Berlin.