Doris Ernst (born 1966 in Germany) currently lives with her family in Shanghai and Berlin. She is a self-taught artist. Her intuition and creativity are an expression of her living, traveling and working in various cities around the world like New York, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Addis Abeba, New Delhi and Japan. These different cultures, people, societies and their art forms have influenced her as well as the friendship with many artists in these countries. She has participated in a several exhibitions in Shanghai.
Doris work has been influenced very strongly by her experiences living in mega cities. The density, noise, speed in contrast to nature, calmness and slowness. Her path towards making her own art started with the strong desire to finding herself again after long years of being a full time working mother of 3 children-working in the clearly structured field of law, working in humanitarian assistance which included visiting Haiti after the earthquake as well as refugee camps in Africa and Syria. She was looking for a way to cope with the experience of joy and disappointment in her personal life as well as sorrow over the death of loved ones. All of this combined with global politics, deteriorating environmental problems, divisions in societies as well as the speed of developments in the age of internet and artificial intelligence brought her to the point where she needed a means of expression to get the constantly spinning thought out of the head. Dealing with chaos and order. Her work is dominanted by the motto “Trying to make sense”. Which includes the wish for finding hope in a complex world.
Doris loves to work with spatulas instead of brushes. Applying paint like that always includes an element of randomness and surprise which again is a similarity to life where perfection can never be completely be planned. The apparent order of the stripes and the grids is however not regular. The stripe as a symbol of routine are however never the same and in this representing individuality. Overlaying layers show the multitude of different influences we face in our life.
Her work also includes a series of works on paper called “fading”. Which deals with the issue of not losing yourself, your integrity, your values and personality under the constant outside pressure.
Another series of works including a collection of found objects and markings on crushed/crumbled paper as well as prints with broken pieces of tiles from demolished houses deals with the question of transience and vulnerability.
The current situation /crisis clearly shows that rationality is (at least not alone/ by itself) the solution. Humanity, emotions, caring for each other empathy and love are need as well. Struggling and standing together while sharing our concerns and thoughts will give us the hope we need to find a brighter tomorrow in the chaos of our time.