gap (2025) Photo: Janna Schielke

At the center of Carlotta Oppermann’s practice is the relationship between body, space, and material as a mutually formative constellation. The body does not appear as an autonomous entity, but rather as something continually shaped and reshaped by the space surrounding it, by architecture, objects, clothing, and social structures. Her works emerge from concrete situations, site-specific conditions, personal found objects, or found materials. These objects function as both resistance and partners in the working process.

She is interested in how material shapes or constrains the body, or gives rise to new forms of movement, and how this can generate images of alienation and transformation. In gap (2025), Oppermann uses her father’s workwear—a uniform bearing traces of labor, time, and individual use. In the work, the head disappears into the garment, while arms and hands emerge from unexpected places. The garment becomes a shell, an in-between space, a site of metamorphosis. The work explores questions of identity, body image, and generational relationships through physical experience, chance, and repetition.

In photographic works such as one man girl (2025) and performances such as dialogue with the Closure (2022), Carlotta Oppermann likewise works with fragmentation, weight, balance, and the dialogue between body and object. Doors, cupboards, and suitcases emerge as independent actors whose materiality challenges and shapes the body, while opening up and limiting possibilities for action.

In her drawings, Oppermann primarily works with black ink. The fluid medium allows for a process-based approach to form, in which structures can emerge spontaneously, become denser, and develop further. The drawings are created intuitively; she understands them as open models, blueprints, or thought-figures that reflect relationships, interaction, and images of space and the body.

the weight we lay to rest (2026) Photo: Rüdiger Rodloff

untitled (2025) Photo: Andre Germar