abandoned places

In the "Abandoned Places" series, M Kraatz explores loss, grief, and the spaces of remembrance associated with them. When someone close to you dies or when bonds or phases of life end, new spaces gradually emerge where something is missing, something remains, and something new can also emerge simultaneously.

Grieving processes are not linear; they are not always loud or quiet, black or white, but rather multi-layered. They generate interwoven layers that become visible and tangible at different times, sometimes contradicting each other. Like memories themselves, M Kraatz's works are not photographic or filmic images but fragments altered by processes of interpretation. The pictures were created on purple primed canvases, with motifs that transition from dark to light in glazed and opaque acrylic layers.

Often only sections of the scenes are visible, with variations in size and width. They appear frozen, still. The arrangement of the depicted objects evokes a sense of past vitality. For example, the bed looks as if it has recently been used, and the bottles on the kitchen table appear as if they have been left standing. They depict rooms in an apartment in Berlin Neukölln.

Upon viewing, two distinct spaces emerge: one of oppressive silence and infinitely slowed-down time, representing a farewell already said; and one of unfolding memory, filled with sounds, conversations, touches, liveliness, and closeness, longing to preserve memories forever.