Rachel Garrard Kamu, 2021 Rock powder pigment on linen 81.3 x 66 cm Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin / Seoul König Galerie
KÖNIG GALERIE is proud to present MANIFESTATIONS IN THE LIGHT, Rachel Garrard’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, hosted within the monumental Nave of St. Agnes in Berlin.
Drawing its title from Pert em Hru—the ancient Egyptian text commonly known as the Book of the Dead, translated as “Coming Forth by Day” or “Manifested in the Light”—the exhibition explores the journey of consciousness through shifting states of matter and illumination.
The venue itself, a deconsecrated Brutalist church designed by Werner Düttmann and sensitively renovated by Arno Brandlhuber, serves as an ideal architectural sanctuary for an inquiry into transcendence and transformation.
The exhibition begins as visitors ascend toward JOURNEY THROUGH THE NIGHT, a large-scale blue diptych suspended in deep atmospheric tones.
Combining landscapes, cosmic forms, geometric patterns, and human silhouettes into a unified field, this painting acts as both an entryway and a cosmological diagram that anchors the rest of the show.
On the floor below, a precise grid of quartz powder structures the physical space, hosting an arrangement of gathered objects from across Berlin.
Rocks, branches, and everyday fragments function as a personal symbolic language influenced by ancient ritual and quantum physics, establishing pathways through nonlinear time where physical items simultaneously exist as signs in a broader conceptual system.
Surrounding this central installation, Garrard’s paintings represent the materialization of these ideas.
Executed on raw linen using natural rock and mineral pigments such as lapis lazuli, malachite, iron, and ochres, the works present mirrored axes, triangulations, and radiant portals.
Rather than illustrating a concrete mythology, these intuitive visual propositions move fluidly between symmetry and dissolution, transforming mineral matter into color and color into forms that transcend ordinary perception.
Rachel Garrard Inner Landscapes, 2024 Pastel on archival paper; maple wood frame 35.5 x 28 cm 42.5 x 35 x 2.8 cm (incl frame) Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE König Galerie
At the far end of the nave, the final painting shifts the focus directly to light itself.
Infused with mica, its reflective surface appears almost empty from afar, yet reveals faint geometric traces as the viewer approaches and moves around it.
Activated by the ambient conditions of the architecture, the work continually emerges and recedes, bridging the boundary between the visible and the unseen.
Since its founding in 2002, KÖNIG GALERIE has established itself as an influential platform for contemporary art, focusing on multidisciplinary, concept-driven works across painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and new media.
Its flagship space in Berlin-Kreuzberg, which earned the Berlin Architecture Prize in 2016, is complemented by international footprints, including KÖNIG SEOUL opened in 2021, alongside pop-up locations across London, Vienna, Tokyo, Monaco, Munich, and Mexico City.
By placing major works in institutions such as MoMA and the Guggenheim and supporting artists featured in Documenta and the Venice Biennale, KÖNIG GALERIE continues to foster groundbreaking artistic dialogues globally.
