NADA Miami 2023

The ‘Panikblüte’ on view – translates as panic blossoms – is used to describe the state of a plant that, shortly before dying, puts all its energy into preserving its species and produces flowers in excess. Two new paintings resemble the colors of Miami Beach’s watchtowers that characterize the local urban spaces as imprints of security that implies a masculine viewer represented in the position of the lifeguard. The kaleidoscopic shapes — acrylic paint on linen that are stapled directly to the wall — radiate an energetic presence which is potentiated by the targeted color combination. The immersive power of Tretter’s ‘panic blossoms’ unfolds due to the limited surrounding space of the fair booth, which makes it impossible to step further, due to its excessive-monumental quality. The central and recurring motif in Alexandra Tretter’s paintings is an oval in which multiple symbols such as an egg, a mouth, an eye or a vulva — organs that are characterised by the interplay of guidelines and seclusion/openness and closure/femininity and masculinity — coalesce and produce a distinct spatial composition themselves. The compositions highlight the limitations and possibilities of femininity tracing back to 20th century female painters and constraints in urban and domestic spaces while Tretter’s works open up what had been denied access to can expressively bloom. Elliptical blossoms cover the booth’s wall like a sentinel or guard may observe the surrounding area from a watchtower at the beach. Like the panic blossom in survival mode of its own species on the verge of extinction, the lifeguard puts all his energy into the protective gaze in order to preserve a human life. The eye masters, it sets at a distance. The vulva invades, brings to life.