Tardi Rama
An ontological study of this remarkable microscopic multicellular organism. The series examines the interdependence of environment, living conditions, and being. Biomorphic colour forms evoke cellular life, expressing resilience and the pursuit of cohesion and stability. Graphite intervenes by fragmenting, rearranging, and overlaying, revealing the delicate fragility of existence and the infinite awakening of the tardigrade from cryptobiosis.
Tardi Rama grows from the same world as Tardigrade Parade. Where the Parade gathers many of these creatures into a procession, Tardi Rama turns to a single one and magnifies it. Each figure is built from seven parts, a play between the microscopic and the monumental, in which the smallest organism swells until it fills the entire sheet.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama I”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 120 × 74.16 cm.
Private collection, not available.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama II”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 120 × 74.16 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama XVIII”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 125 × 77.25 cm.
Private collection, not available.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama XVII”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 125 × 77.25 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama XVI”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 125 × 77.25 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama XIV”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 125 × 77.25 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama XV”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 125 × 77.25 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama XII”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 125 × 77.25 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama XIII”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 125 × 77.25 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama X”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 59.4 × 36.7 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama XI”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 59.4 × 36.7 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama VI”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 59.4 × 36.7 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Tardi Rama VII”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 59.4 × 36.7 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Colours & Lines | Studies VIII”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 120 × 74.16 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Colours & Lines | Studies IX”, 2025. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 120 × 74.16 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Colours & Lines | Studies III”, 2024. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 100 × 61.8 cm.
Private collection, not available.
Denise Schellmann, “Colours & Lines | Studies IV”, 2024. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 100 × 61.8 cm.
Denise Schellmann, “Colours & Lines | Studies I”, 2024. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 100 × 61.8 cm.
Private collection, not available.
Denise Schellmann, “Colours & Lines | Studies III”, 2024. Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, 100 × 61.8 cm.
Private collection, not available.
Freud und Leid: a play on words as the name “Freud” echoes the German word for joy, “Freude”.
In the diptych, it is dialectically juxtaposed with
suffering – “Leid”.
Iconic, spontaneous forms visualise the colours of life. It is only in the cohesive whole that stability and joie de vivre emerge from the order of cell-
like, biomorphic forms. Harmony in colours and surfaces, surprising in their outcomes and not plannable, like life itself. A fragile bond on the brownwomb of Mother Earth.
The fault lines, fatefully inscribed in black from the very beginning: dark spaces of decay or illness.
Black lines separate. They overwrite what was once orderly. Uncoordinated and boundless suffering grows. The disease that takes possession of our intactness. In the disintegration of formal harmony, black space gains its autonomous identity. It leaves us searching for joy in suffering.
Denise Schellmann, „Freud und Leid", 2024. Diptych, graphite, coloured pencil and red chalk on paper, each 168 × 103 cm. From the exhibition „The Window and the Couch", 74th arts Rebecca Hoffman, curated by Simon Rees, Bibliothek WEST, Vienna.