17/08/2026
Emde Gallery is very pleased to present RONIA ADL-TABATABAI’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. „Liaison“ brings together new paintings, graphic works and, for the first time, ceramics, marking a new chapter in the artist’s practice as her long-standing exploration of painting expands organically into three-dimensional space.
The title, „Liaison“ – a connection between two components – reflects the exhibition’s central idea: diverse materials, techniques, and forms become intertwined, overlapping and influencing one another. Clay pigments find their way into the paintings, giving them a distinct corpreal quality. Brushstrokes merge into tactile knots and loops, while layers of paint accumulate until their making becomes almost impossible to trace.
For many years, Ronia Adl-Tabatabai has explored the brushstroke – that expressive gesture so closely associated with the myth of artistic genius. While her earlier works focused on the individual brushstroke as a carrier of silent power structures within painting, her new works shift the focus towards connection, interweaving and transformation. Individual brushstrokes overlap and intertwine into a complex fabric of lines, knots, and loops. Layer by layer, the painted surfaces condense into intricate pictorial spaces whose making becomes almost impossible to trace.
The ceramic works also embrace this idea of connection. Inspired by collected branches and plant structures, they continue her investigation of growth, connection and entanglement, expanding her painterly practice into a new spatial dimension.
Ronia Adl-Tabatabai (*1994) lives and works in Mainz. She studied Fine Arts at Kunsthochschule Mainz, where she completed her Meisterschülerin studies under Prof. Anne Berning in 2024. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently at the Rheinland-Pfalz Triennale in Trier and at AKM Koblenz. She is currently nominated for the Mainz Art Prize 2026 Landeshauptstadt Mainz, with works on view in the nominees‘ exhibition at Apollo apollo (Ollohof), Mainz.
RONIA ADL-TABATABAI – Liaison
29 August – 10 October 2026
OPENING: Friday, 28 August, 6-8:30 pm
