PAPER gallery - Lisa Wilkens - The Shadow of an Unseen Power

70 years ago the first Atomic Bomb was detonated at the Trinity Site in New Mexico. The Shadow of an Unseen Power is an exhibition of drawings informed by the artists personal experiences of anti-nuclear war activism growing up in Germany in the 1980s.

Lisa Wilkens practice is based in drawing with a focus on the potential of images as catalyst for discourse and change. Assembling images related to nuclear power, nuclear weapons and radioactivity, Wilkens combines elements of historic and scientific information, social action and political secrecy.

Wilkens understands the act of drawing – however detailed and laborious in performance – as subtle activism and enduring resistance addressing political conscience and passivity. The preciseness of depiction is used to reflect a desire to investigate what exactly is present in an image, to find out if there is something within the manual rendering of the image that will reveal an alternative reading, a different truth. Her work often acts as a framework for personal exchange and political discourse, a way to explore ideas and establish common ground.

Lisa Wilkens was born in Berlin and grew up in Bremen, North Germany. She completed a degree in scientific illustration at the University of the Arts, Zurich Switzerland graduating in 2005. In 2007, Lisa completed an MA in printmaking at Camberwell College, University of the Arts London. Her work was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011 and exhibited at the SS1 space Sheffield and the ICA in London. Further exhibitions include Kettle’s Yard Cambridge, Paper at Saatchi Gallery, and Block 336, Brixton.

Exhibition Catalogue