ABOUT
Artist statement
There are two driving forces in my artistic practice.
One is an almost obsessive fascination with materials and their capacity to change. I am constantly searching for new agents for my work, experimenting with substances that grow, stretch, shrink, react, decay or resist control. I want to discover what materials are capable of when I allow them to follow their own logic.
The other is the human being: the body, the psyche, our vulnerabilities, memories and inner experiences. I am interested in what lies beneath the surface, what gets under our skin, and what remains hidden even when another layer is revealed.
These two strands come together in my installations. Through material, form and atmosphere, I create multisensory spaces in which people can encounter one another and perhaps recognise something of themselves. I believe in the healing potential of art—not as a cure, but as a possibility for connection, self-recognition and transformation. I am fascinated by the power of ritual and the transformative processes within trauma. I allow these almost spiritual dimensions to become part of my installations.
My background in science and medicine, my work as a psychotherapist and my experience in the visual arts all shape this process. I do not see these fields as separate or competing. Each is necessary, each influences and enriches the others. The same is true of collective work and the encounters that emerge through it.
It is precisely through this interplay that my work gains its complexity and richness. I do not want to exclude any of these influences. I need all of them to create the work I want to make.
Bio
Mara Sandrock (born 1983 in Wuppertal, Germany) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Leipzig. She studied fine art at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, beginning in painting before moving into sculpture, driven by a growing desire to work with space, physical presence and a wider range of materials.
Alongside her artistic development, medicine remained a constant companion and responsibility. She studied human medicine, became a specialist in anatomy and spent many years teaching. She also trained in psychotherapy, deepening her engagement with the human psyche and the complexity of individual experience.
Her artistic path has been shaped by curiosity, experimentation and the urge to move beyond the boundaries of any single discipline. What began in painting expanded into sculpture and eventually into immersive, site-specific installations.
Today, these seemingly different paths come together. Her knowledge of the body, her experience in psychotherapy and her fascination with materials and their transformations are inseparable from her artistic practice. Looking at her work, what might once have appeared to be separate parts of her biography makes sense as a whole.
CV
*1983 in Wuppertal
2005–2014 Studies in Human Medicine, University of Leipzig and Université du Luxembourg
2010–2018 Studies in Painting (under Prof. Ute Pleuger) and Sculpture (under Prof. Andrea Zaumseil), Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design, Halle
2018 Diploma in Fine Arts
Lives and works in Leipzig.
Awards and Grants
2023 Cataloggrant Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen
2022 Artist in Lab 2022, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
2022 NEUSTART Modul C Projectrant, BBK-Bundesverband
2021 NEUSTART Modul A, BBK-Bundesverband
2021 Scolarship, Installation and Objectart, Künstlergut Prösitz e.V.
2020 Gastspielförderung ‚come as you are‘, Kunstverein Junge Kunst Trier e.V.
2020 MaDe Material-Workshop, Mailand
2019 Cataloggrant Kultursamt Leipzig
2018 Nomine for“Förderpreis für gegenständliche Kunst“, Galerie Bodenseekreis, Meersburg
Bibliography
SPELL ON YOU – Mara Sandrock, Ausst.-Kat., hg. von Mara Sandrock, Leipzig 2024
und nehme mit, Ausst.-Kat. hg. von Künstlergut Prösitz e.V., Grimma, 2022
mtrl, Ausst.-Kat. zur Gruppenschau, hg. von Enne Haehnle und Lucy König, Leipzig 2021
Mara Sandrock, come as you are, Ausst.-Kat., hg. von Mara Sandrock, Leipzig 2019 INWÄNDIG//AUSWÄNDIG, Ausst.-Kat., hg. von Intershop interdisciplinaire, Leipzig 2019
jung + gegenständlich, Ausst.-Kat., hg. von Galerie Bodenseekreis, Meersburg 2018
Nichts als die Wahrheit. 50 x Malerei Klasse Ute Pleuger 1999–2016, Ausst.-Kat., hg. von Ute Pleuger für die Kunsthochschule Burg Giebichenstein, Halle/Saale 2016