Helge Hommes und Saxana Schötschel
Since 1993, numerous exhibitions by Helge Friedrich Kronenberg Hommes (Helge Hommes, born 1964 in Schwelm, North Rhine-Westphalia) have taken place nationally and internationally—in galleries, at art fairs, as well as in art associations and museums.
Saxana Nicole Schötschel (born 1966 in Düsseldorf) studied art at the Werkkunstschule Cologne from 1986 to 1993. Afterwards, she worked largely independently within free artistic contexts, away from the commercial art market, and only in recent years increasingly developed collaborations with galleries.
In 2012, without knowing each other, we independently moved to Leipzig. We first encountered each other there in 2013 at the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei. In 2014, we met again during Helge Hommes’ art project DAS URLICHT, and from that moment on, we never lost sight of one another.
The growing exchange between us and the shared conceptual development of our artistic practices became so intensive that in 2017 we decided to work together as the artist duo HELGE & SAXANA.
In the same year, we founded the Atelier für Gegenwartskunst Helge & Saxana in Leipzig, followed in 2023 by the foundation of the Kunstverein 1,5° e.V.
(Press coverage: Kunstforum International.)
Our solidarity-based engagement through art within resistance movements—particularly in 2018 at the Hambach Forest with the project
RAUMSCHIFF HAMBACHER WALD – AUFBRUCH IN NEUE WELTEN
(SPACESHIP HAMBACH FOREST – DEPARTURE INTO NEW WORLDS)—
became a new foundation for both our collaborative and individual artistic practices.
We are currently developing a comprehensive body of work that examines the history of the forest—from its origins after the Ice Age more than 12,000 years ago, through the struggle for its preservation against RWE and the policies of the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2012 to the present, while also observing its possible future transformation into an “original forest” with the character of primeval woodland.
Over the years, this has evolved into a unique artistic tribute to the Hambach Forest—an extensive contemporary testimony created through painting and drawing.
Parallel to this work, we continue to develop other bodies of work, exploring our shared fascination with the magnificent architecture of nature.
Each of us follows an individual artistic path—see the respective sections on Saxana Nicole Schötschel and Helge Hommes on our website, within the section HELGE & SAXANA.
Ultimately, all these different strands become interwoven, forming a larger whole.
