SARAH BOGNER | BOUQUET
The romance of cabbage
The exhibition Bouquet focuses on two central groups of work by Sarah Bogner: still lifes and horses, and began during a residency in Paris. There, the artist encountered the works of her ‘old friends’ Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse and had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with them. And as is often the case when you finally meet again in person after a period of digital encounters, you discover new things, even in old acquaintances, and draw strength and ideas for your own work. Driven by the inspiration of the city, numerous new works were created.
In the tradition of classical modernism, Bogner developed a series of still lifes. The motifs range from cabbages and flowers to everyday life and festive elegance. The artist combines different approaches on one canvas. For the first time, she allows acrylic paint, the thick application of egg tempera and cloudy ink to meet directly. This combination of the three techniques ranges from harmonious consonance to tension-filled collision. The interplay energises the simple motifs and, together with the contrasting backgrounds, creates painterly tension and liveliness.
Horse creatures have been a recurring motif in Bogner’s work for a long time. Over the years, they have become increasingly human-like, yet they are clearly not human. They are not only dynamic visual elements and characters, but also placeholders for the figurative. Using these creatures, the artist constantly explores painterly questions relating to light and shadow, reduction and abundance, abstraction and figurativeness. In her latest works, the horse creatures dance in the style of Henri Matisse, carrying something in their hooves that remains undefined as a void.
The motifs in the exhibition cover a wide range, yet retain a connecting element for Bogner. It is a bouquet of motifs and worlds of association that she connects with her own unique formal language. Between cabbage as the epitome of the banal and the extravagance of the horse creatures, peonies form a connecting bridge. The exhibition title appears in a poem written by the artist in Paris titled ‘Everything is romantic (Bouquet)’. Whether horse creatures or still lifes, roses or cabbages: everything belongs together in Sarah Bogner’s painting. For every motif can be romantic – and, even more importantly in this context, powerful and independent painting.
Text: Julian Denzler
Text and poem in German
For inquiries please contact us at caspar@liviegallery.com.
Everything is romantic (Bouquet)
We are flowers
From the same bouquet
Things have roots and fruits
Matters have beginnings and ends
Find the one that zooms in on you
No path unless you walk it
Everything is romantic
Sarah Bogner
Sarah Bogner
Alles ist romantisch, 2026
egg tempera, Indian ink, acrylic on canvas
120 x 140 cm
Sarah Bogner
Dunkles Bouquet, 2025
egg tempera, Indian ink, acrylic on canvas
100 x 70 cm
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Sarah Bogner
Dunkler Kohlkopf, 2025
egg tempera, Indian ink, acrylic on canvas
40 x 50 cm
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Sarah Bogner (*1980 Munich, Germany, lives and works in Vienna, Austria) is a painter, musician, and co-founder of the publishing house Harpune in Vienna. She graduated from the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich in 2008 and studied at the ELAK at University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (2004–2006).
Her work is rooted in drawing and painting, often characterized by distilled, stylized equine figures and companion motifs that balance clarity, rhythm, and playful distortion. Working primarily with ink, egg tempera, and acrylic, Bogner develops a visual language in which line, color, and movement form concise pictorial systems that echo both art-historical references and the dynamics of music and poetry.
Her artistic activity also extends to publishing and collaborative projects, reflecting her ongoing interest in dialogue across visual, musical, and literary practices.
Recent solo exhibitions include Flora (with Patrick Mohundro), Cabanon, Paris; Fallende Früchte at Galerie Bernd Kugler, Innsbruck; Volley at Gerberhaus Fehring, Austria; Freunde des Lichts, Livie Gallery, Zurich; Unter der Sonne wie im Schatten, Kunstverein Heppenheim, Germany; Arrière Garde, Galerie Christine Mayer, Munich; Sein wie ein Stein, denken wie ein Pferd, Milchstrasse 4, Munich; Liebe und Blamage, KiS, Seefeld in Tirol and Parade, MQ Art Box, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna.
Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Ferdinandeum Innsbruck, Secci Gallery, Florence, Ehrhardt Floréz Gallery, Madrid, Spurs Gallery, Beijing, Mauer, Cologne, and Casa Manno, Alghero, among others.
In 2023 she participated at the Blank 100 x Craveiral Residency in S.Teotonio, Portugal and was granted the BMKOES – Cité des Arts de Paris residency in 2025.
Top Image:
Sarah Bogner
Bouquet Paradies, 2025, detail
ink, acrylic, egg tempera on canvas
80 x 60 cm