Sarah Ortmeyer’s recent 'EMOJI SHADOW' series (2019) includes monochromatic representations of symbols that capture the essence of particular characters in the Emojicon codex. In these works, the silhouettes of each signifier are painted in a single tone of black pigment on either a paper or a metal surface. The paper, often silver, but sometimes an eggshell hue or black, appears weightless in comparison to mounted metal works of the same scale—powder-coated aluminum surfaces in matching silver, ivory, and black backgrounds—which hang against the wall in shallow profile like suspended sheets of a manuscript. While the works are serial in nature, each image is distinct. The expressive lines of exotic trees appear to either burst like a firework or droop like broken fronds after a storm; the apparition of an eight-legged creature appears almost weighted and swollen, or otherwise buoyantly dancing in a gust of wind upon a web; the arch of a rainbow appears as a series of unbroken lines, a representation that could have only been achieved by the artist’s hand stretching the length of her body from one limit to the other along a particular axis. Ortmeyer’s reductive yet anthropomorphic style transforms familiar forms of conversation into a vehicle for idiosyncratic language.

In 79 AD, before being engulfed in the eruption of a volcano, the ancient Roman author Pliny recounted in his Naturalis Historia that the shadow invented painting. It was first discovered by a Corinthian girl who drew her lover’s shadow on the wall, by the light of a lamp, as a way to preserve his image before going into battle.

Not all shadows are acts of love.

Though by nature the shadow is sensual—it traces the outline of forms that impart a silhouette onto a surface when a light source is interrupted.

Light does not vanish to create the shadow; its brightness exists upon another plane (between the source of the projection and a screen).

Shadows are acts of touch where identity and sex become irrelevant.

In the EMOJI SHADOW SERIES, the silhouettes of signifiers—hearts (COR), spiders (ARANEA), rainbows (ARCUS), devils (DIABOLUS), and palm trees (PALMA) among them—are painted in a single tone of black pigment on paper and metal in hues of either silver, eggshell, or charcoal.

The familiarity of the Emojicon codex is transformed into a vehicle for idiosyncratic language: reductive yet anthropomorphic fragments of image-based conversation.

Tropical trees either burst like a firework, or droop like broken fronds after a storm.

The apparition of eight-legged creatures appear weighted and swollen, or otherwise buoyantly dance in a gust of wind upon a web.

Hearts and devils swarm—love and death in equal measure.

The EMOJI SHADOW SERIES returns to the desire that exists at the heart of the origin of painting: for love, an oasis, a paradise.


The exhibition incorporates the formal elements of chess alongside a
series of new paintings and sculptures. In this show, the personification
of heaven and hell is also explored through the artist’s ‘emoji shadow
series,’ a body of work that interrogates the relationship to the origins
of painting, universal language, and iconography. In her paintings
of palm trees, devils, and rainbows, Ortmeyer captures the essence
of the codex as both a type of script and a physical object capable of
existing in nature.

Comprised of all new works in a massive arrangement, ‘FLYRT’ features classic artistic disciplines such as sculpture, painting, and film, developing non-traditional modes of presentation. HUMAN-SIZED CHESSBOARDS are interspersed throughout the three exhibition rooms. The CHESSBOARD PAINTINGS reflect the ethereal colors of the sky. These oversized panels are accompanied by a pair of MINIATURE CHESSBOARDS. The gridded pictures are the latest works in Ortmeyer’s long and continued investigation into chess, emphasizing the aesthetics and dynamics of this iconic sport. Throughout the building and protruding from the walls are chess pieces made of OSTRICH EGGS. Through nature these large female products have developed unique distorted surfaces. Premiering in Kunstverein München’s Kino, the silent movie FLYRT POETICA is the result of Ortmeyer’s long lasting correspondence with a rising teen idol and rapper, during which the pair developed a peculiar collective vocabulary punctuated by the consistent, repeated appearances of sophisticated POEMS, BLACK EMOJIS, DICK PICS, LUXURY ITEMS, NUDES, SPIDERS, FILM STILLS, IDEOGRAMS, LYRICS, SYMPHONIC SCORES, HOLLYWOOD, HEARTS, MUSES and ARTWORKS by artists such as ROSEMARIE TROCKEL, LOUISE
BOURGEOIS, ALMA THOMAS, and ORTMEYER herself. Demonstrating the rapid visually-focused nature of 21st century exchange, Ortmeyer articulates a return to HIEROGLYPHICS, where pictures have become a more immediate and nuanced form of language. This correspondence was collected as a HARDCOVER BOOK and
printed black on silver, a mutual material choice by the rapper and the artist. The book was then transposed into a moving image, to be projected onto the SILVER SCREEN. This procession of HIEROGLYPHS also forms the basis of a new series of painted works on silver paper. Featuring rapid hand-rendered icons of BLACK SPIDERS and BLACK HEARTS, these coded paintings chart a correspondence throughout the exhibition spaces. ‘FLYRT’ combines a system of relentlessly repeated variables varying in size and material, while keeping the core of
being emotionally completely raw.