Ute Bertog (1970, Germany) is a St. Paul based visual artist, who explores the relationship between language and its many representations. In 1998 she resettled in the US from her native Germany to pursue a career in the arts. She holds degrees in marketing and economics as well as a BFA in painting from the Minneapolis College of Art. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, grayDuck Gallery in Austin, TX, the Soap Factory, SooVisual Art Center both in Minneapolis, MN, and the Rochester Art Center in Rochester, MN. She is affiliated with Rosalux Gallery in Minneapolis, MN.
In her practice Ute Bertog looks to establish relationships between things. This may pertain to colors, lines and shapes in a painting, as well as to whatever she chooses to bring into its context. She is drawn to pliable material for its ability to continuously yield to intuitive adjustments before time will fix it into place, be it oil paint, clay or words. Not seeing herself as a writer, she nevertheless understands the process of painting very much akin to writing, a process of constant editing and change, yet without the goal of creating legible content. Instead she is reaching to create improvised abstract patterns that go against any sense of predictability or familiarity, trusting that eventually something meaningful will be said however ineloquently, however stumbled and stuttered, its very own syntax mangled and corrupted. Her approach is surely informed by her experience as a non-native speaker, which has afforded her a heightened awareness of language as an abstract construct. Meaning then becomes free-floating and easily separated from the sound and visual form of language. This is where imagination and play are able to readily fill in any gaps.