Market Art Fair

New Horizons: Schwarz Contemporary at Market Art Fair 2025

News

A dynamic trio of artists – Emily Gernild, Aki Turunen, and Lisa Tiemann – explore the intersection of transformation, mythology, and materiality through painting and sculpture.

One of the international galleries making its debut at the fair this year is Berlin-based Schwarz Contemporary. Representing ten international and Nordic artists, the gallery spans a wide range of media, with a primary focus on painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture. For their inaugural presentation, the gallery brings together Danish artist Emily Gernild, Finnish artist Aki Turunen, and German artist Lisa Tiemann.

Emily Gernild’s abstract yet organic interpretations of everyday scenes and objects invite introspection, transforming the familiar into evocative visual narratives. In her drawings and paintings, Gernild engages with unobserved motifs – objects that we take for granted and which surround us in our private and public everyday lives. The beauty and intimate drama of transience is a constant motivation for her work.

  • Courtesy of Schwarz Contemporary and Emily Gernild
  • Courtesy of Schwarz Contemporary and Emily Gernild

Her pieces enter into a dialogue with Aki Turunen’s fantastical and mythical creatures and sceneries, which explore shared human experiences through a blend of personal imagination and art historical references. His works are based on a combination of intuitive, subconscious imagery and a profound knowledge of art history.

By using traditional tools for his own purposes, Turunen combines a very personal painterly narrative with images taken from history, creating a rich dialogue between past and present. His works depict spring’s arrival, jewel-like snakes at the sea’s bottom, nocturnal rainbows, and monk-like figures carrying fantastical creatures, birds, spiders, dolphins, and flowers. Dragon charmers, saints, delicate flowers, and splendid butterflies populate his wooden panels, canvases, and works on paper.

  • Aki Turunen, A Vernal Mirage, 2023. Courtesy of Schwarz Contemporary
  • Aki Turunen. Photo by Matteo Parrotto, courtesy of Schwarz Contemporary
  • Aki Turunen, An Orchard Flown Astray, 2024. Courtesy of Schwarz Contemporary and Aki Turunen

Lisa Tiemann’s sculptures add another layer to this conversation. In her series COUPLES, the artist investigates cohesion and tension, unity and individuality. Her sculptural works are in constant communication – whether between movements, materials, or artistic expressions. Stretching, bending, and arching, Tiemann’s indoor and outdoor sculptures interact with their surroundings, the beholders, and each other.

  • Photo by Annalena Nerea Abramczik. Courtesy of Schwarz Contemporary and Lisa Tiemann
  • Lisa Tiemann, Couple (SB) III, 2024. Courtesy of Schwarz Contemporary

Since 2016, Tiemann has developed COUPLES as an exploration of the tension between two elements of different materiality, questioning our understanding of connection. The fractures, gaps, and shifts in her works are fundamental elements of her concept of unity, where the limits of material properties, stability, and gravity are central themes.

 

  • Lisa Tiemann, Installation view. Courtesy of Schwarz Contemporary

Schwarz Contemporary’s presentation at Market Art Fair expands this dialogue across formal languages: abstract and figurative painting as seen in Gernild and Turunen’s works, alongside the sculptural vocabulary of Tiemann. The exhibition offers a layered conversation about human experience, artistic expression, and the complex interplay between unity and tension.