Asphalt I & II

This diptych is derived from Baumgartner's process of using her own video footage as the source for her woodcut imagery. Journeys out of Leipzig on the German Autobahn towards the Baltic coast have allowed her to record the continuum of a moving car. Individual frames from these video images, separated by less than a second, are selected and transferred onto the computer, to be enlarged and manipulated, before being placed face down onto a block of plywood to act as a line template for her carving in wood. The motorway as the means of access between one urban centre and another is explored with precise and repeated 'cut' marks, and a grey and white approach to colour, to suggest monotony as well as the indefinite expansion of the man-made into the natural landscape. The artist's own personal relationship with motorway travel as a symbol of post-unification freedom in Germany further complicates the relationship with this constructed environment. Presented by the Art Fund through Art Fund International.