Elsa Hagelskamp

South African by birth, Elsa has been living in Germany since 2000. She was a journalist and then trained as an artist (mainly painting) in South Africa. She has since pursued her passion for art in Germany, exhibiting her work and serving on the boards of art associations. Elsa is married and has two daughters.

As a keen observer of current affairs, Elsa Hagelskamp uses her journalistic sense to track down topics relating to political, social and cultural life and translates them into artistic language. In doing so, she is usually not concerned with the depictive and illustrative reproduction of reality, but with a facet behind the superficial. She always has a contradiction, an otherness and ambiguity in store, a "Von Wegen". She approaches her themes in a conceptual manner and after thorough research before finding her artistic formal language. Her handling and testing of various materials and the working process itself is fearless and constantly in flux. Hagelskamp constantly struggles to find the best possible visualisation of the level of meaning in her works.

In many of her works, she chooses a colour palette that she uses to symbolise the poles of Africa and Europe. Two continents that magically attract each other, but could not be more different. "Her work demonstrates the natural interweaving of two artistic and cultural spheres, which began more than a hundred years ago with the discovery and reception of so-called primitive cultures by the artists of the European avant-garde," said art historian Lena Berkler in an introductory speech in 2016.

Many works by Elsa Hagelskamp, who was born and grew up in South Africa, feature geometric, organic forms. The "sign forms" in her work also stand as universal symbols for cultural growth and cultural diversity, which is essential for creativity, exchange and renewal. Hagelskamp's artistic expression is revealed in a multi-layered way in her works and shows the astute view of the artist, who worked as a journalist for many years, on the cosmos of the world, which is reflected in her works.

Please visit her website to find out more: Elsa Hagelskamp