Solo Show @New Fears Gallery
Sick Spells
Katya Quel
30.08–03.09.2024 @ New Fears Gallery, Berlin
Text: Eleonora F. | Photo: Viktor Nikishov
In Sick Spells, Katya Quel conjures a "candy temple" of mixed-media objects, altars, and surreal relics that blur the line between myth, memory, and material culture. Using forest branches, resin, slime, 3D-printed parts, and digital screens, she creates an uncanny world where ancient rituals meet post-industrial dreams.
Oversized confections like wizard hats and pink sword-forms rest alongside pagan scarecrow artifacts and sci-fi relics, all rendered in a palette of soft pastels and eerie sweetness. Female figures in altar-like paintings rewrite history with care and subversion, offering a tender alternative to dominant narratives.
At the heart of the show lies a performative component based on Quel’s 2021 book At the Iconostasis of Hypocrisy—a lament between generations, inviting reflection on guilt, legacy, and utopia.
Sick Spells invites us into a fragile, enchanted landscape where technology and nature, femininity and fantasy, violence and care all coexist in magical contradiction.
![]()
Katya Quel
30.08–03.09.2024 @ New Fears Gallery, Berlin
Text: Eleonora F. | Photo: Viktor Nikishov
In Sick Spells, Katya Quel conjures a "candy temple" of mixed-media objects, altars, and surreal relics that blur the line between myth, memory, and material culture. Using forest branches, resin, slime, 3D-printed parts, and digital screens, she creates an uncanny world where ancient rituals meet post-industrial dreams.
Oversized confections like wizard hats and pink sword-forms rest alongside pagan scarecrow artifacts and sci-fi relics, all rendered in a palette of soft pastels and eerie sweetness. Female figures in altar-like paintings rewrite history with care and subversion, offering a tender alternative to dominant narratives.
At the heart of the show lies a performative component based on Quel’s 2021 book At the Iconostasis of Hypocrisy—a lament between generations, inviting reflection on guilt, legacy, and utopia.
Sick Spells invites us into a fragile, enchanted landscape where technology and nature, femininity and fantasy, violence and care all coexist in magical contradiction.
ells