...Usually Katrin Korfmann already makes it difficult for the viewer by adopting a birds-eye or aerial perspective, as we always want to see people frontally, in daily life and because we have been taught to see that way through art history. Korfmann makes that skewed perspective even more extreme by giving each jumping or running child an elongated shadow.
And there we can see at once the humor in this work... In the pools of black which cling to the children we can unmistakably see projections of the childlike form, but those black projections lead a life of their own, dominate the flesh and blood which is being portrayed and transform them into a team of peculiar Barbapapas. As you start to follow that spooky dance, your eye skims the whole image, up to and beyond the edge of the frame, and then shoots back and forth between the shadow and the real human form...
(from: “Homo Ludens” by Tineke Reijnders)
Katrin Korfmann (1971, Berln, Germany) has held residencies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (2000), Cittadellarte in Biella, Italy (2001) and the Chinese European Art Center in Xiamen (2014), China. Since the late 1990s, her work has been exhibited internationally in museums, art institutions and public spaces.
Her work is represented in collections in the U.S.: C21, Bill and Christy Gautreaux, Fidelity, Twitter; in Germany: Würth Foundation, Alison & Peter W. Klein, European Patent Office, Robert Bosch Foundation; in the Netherlands: Drake Collection, AMC Art Collection, AkzoNobel Art Collection, Bouwfonds Art Collection, Rabo Real Estate Group, ING Art Collection, VandenBroek Foundation, Plancius Art Collection, Rijnstate art collection, Fotomuseum Den Haag, Carla & Hugo Brown, UMC Utrecht. She won several prizes, including Radostar Prize (CH), Prix de Rome (2nd prize) and the Esther Kroon Award (NL).