Photographs courtesy of Adidas.
Even in 2020, women are still massively underrepresented in the art world. In response, adidas Originals have sought to address the problem by bringing female-identified artists and their allies together. Enter XCHANGE: an Berlin-based art platform and mentorship programme designed to bring women centre-stage, with the view to raise awareness, inspire the community, and ultimately bring about change within the industry. Now, five of the artists supported by the initiative are coming together to present some of their work. Atusa Jafari, Denise Rudolf Frank, Marie and Feline Grub, and Kristina Suvorova will be presenting as part of a group exhibition from 22 to 27 June in Berlin. Find out more about the artists and their work below.
Atusa Jafari
Photo by Lucas Christiansen.
Atusa Jafari is a 20-year-old painter from Berlin. Starting out making abstract, acrylic-based paintings, she now works exclusively with oil on canvas. Jafari’s art is inspired by a fascination with female strength and cohesion, and in general, her figures are gender neutral or fluid. The focus is on the body and expression, as well as various interactions between the respective characters, fuelled by her own personal thoughts while working. Collaboration is key—she works with a lot of other artists, as well as film and music and likes to set up collectives to work with those who share her passions but in different ways.
Denise Rudolf Frank
Photo by Stefan Dotter.
Born in 1993 in Vienna, Austria, Denise Rudolf Frank studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martin’s College in London and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She considers her art to be a passionate plea to enjoy life and a call to action: to act, to try, and to experience. Her powerful, sensual handwriting seeks to touch upon human impulses and to bring them to the surface—a process both deeply intimate and cathartic. In her practice, she explores the differences and similarities between personal and social conventions, rules and established structures, with temperament, artistic depth and a unique mind.
Marie and Feline Grub
Photo by Stefan Dotter.
Twins Marie and Feline Grub have been interested in art since going to an art orientated school in Vienna, going on to study film in Berlin. Afterwards, they started working at a film production company, producing their own film projects with Iconoclast and Universal, among others. In 2015, the idea for “Die Genießer“ was born. Since then they have published two books and have organised several events, such as a pop-up at prestigious department store, Galeries Lafayette. Since 2016, their characters, Die Genießer, can be found in a weekly column in Tagesspiegel Berlin. Their current project is a solo exhibition that shows Die Genießer’s work from the past number of years.
Kristina Suvorova
Photo by Tereza Mundilova.
Kristina Suvorova is a Lithuanian visual artist and illustrator living and working between Berlin and Frankfurt. Originally from Rietavas, a small town in Lithuania, Suvorova moved to Germany in 2010 to study game and animation design at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, graduating in 2014. Her creative practice ranges from illustration to fine arts, video, collage, installation, poetry, sculpture, books, posters, animation, murals and wearable art. Meanwhile, her abstract works play with paradoxes, detailing the most unorthodox of pairings to result in harmonious relationships. Suvorova’s combining of fantasy themes with her distinctive colour palette creates an instantly recognisable aesthetic, further enhanced by her humorous approach and childlike sense of wonder.
XCHANGE final exhibition runs from 22 to 27 June at Münzstraße 14-16 10178 Berlin.