Gabriela Oberkofler, Eingefleischte Wege, 2023–2025; Photos: Werner Hannappel

Over a period of three years, Gabriela Oberkofler, a member of the Morsbroich Workshop, developed a permanent, expansive mural: Starting from the Rococo stucco ceiling of the former ladies’ salon, her work gradually takes over the wall, interweaving plant, animal, and human elements. Outside, on the back of the same wall, a delicate web of lines spreads out in a niche, reaching down into the realm of the roots. Ultimately, the two parts—inside and outside, the world above and below ground—are connected by ornamental tendrils and a curtain of blossoms and water droplets—the elixir without which coexistence on Earth would be impossible. 

During the heyday of Morsbroich Castle in the 18th and 19th centuries, humans clearly dominated the cultivated plant life in the park and the domesticated or hunted animals: a one-sided dominance that later led to devastating consequences—wounds that, upon closer inspection, are also revealed in the Ladies’ Salon.
 

Gabriela Oberkofler, Eingefleischte Wege, 2023–2025; Fotos: Werner Hannappel

Gabriela is preoccupied with the question of how the living beings on this Earth can get along with one another in the future, and how peaceful, sustainable coexistence is possible. Her aim is to break away from the “well-trodden paths”—the trails of the Anthropocene—that have ruthlessly and deeply carved into the very fabric of nature. The artist advocates for a different approach to resources, to the (female) body, to nature, to plants, and to animals.

It is striking that when humans appear in this multi-part work, they do so only in fragmented form—on the interior wall, for example, as severed fingers, eyeballs, or organs—possible references to humanity’s (self-)destructive nature. Instead of a human figure, such as a goddess of hunting or fertility, Gabriela places a plant structure at the center of the sculptural niche. The plants connect the sky, the zone of growth, and the underworld of the roots. Their co-players are insects and birds. And even if this interplay may be deadly—as with the carnivorous plant—and even if the transition between life and death is fundamentally fluid, it is nonetheless cyclical. We know that—if we only exercise restraint—it is possible to find a balance.

Gabriela Oberkofler (a member of Werkstatt Morsbroich) uses her art to explore ecosystems and how we humans can learn from them. She lives and works in Stuttgart, but is originally from South Tyrol, specifically the small village of Jenesien near Bolzano (b. 1975). In 2022, she opened the Institute for Alternative Agriculture, Contemporary Art, and Life on the Periphery in the neighboring village of Flaas.

www.gabrielaoberkofler.de