Acme Studios — Petra Trenkel

Supporting Artists since 1972


Petra Trenkel

Hessische Kulturstiftung Residency
2005/6

Petra Trenkel is a German artist living and working in Berlin. She makes paintings and drawings that depict the way contemporary architecture interacts with its surroundings. Petra’s work is generally of modest scale and material, built up from thin washes of oil paint, portraying functional structures such as business parks, apartment complexes, terraced housing and small-scale industrial buildings with an unadorned simplicity. Her featureless facades are set in minimal and uninhabited landscapes: wide swaths of empty space occasionally occupied by a single tree, bench or lamppost. A sense of stillness hovers over Petra’s paintings: in these unoccupied zones, shadows elongate, and light reaches to create subtle gradations of color.

Petra has exhibited her work in group and solo shows at the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation; Kunstverein L40 and after the butcher, Berlin; Galerie Detterer, Frankfurt; at Chianti Foundation, Marfa, Texas; and the Museu de Arte da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil. In 2003 she was a participant of the Goldrausch artists’ project in Berlin, in 2006 she had a residency at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas and in 2009 she was artist in residency at Cité Internationale des Arts Paris.

Hessische Kulturstiftung, Germany
Acme has managed a residency programme on behalf of Hessische Kulturstiftung since 1995, located on Lyal Road, Bow, E3. Residencies are awarded to artists for a period of 12 months, and the size of the accommodation enables the artist to bring their family or dependents for the length of residency. Based in a residential area populated by many artists, the house is well situated for access to other arts spaces and central London. Residencies are open to all artists from Germany. Applications and selection are dealt with directly by Hessische Kulturstiftung.

For more information visit hkst.de