Gabriela Oberkofler

growing rooms

growing rooms, 2025, three-part, ink and watercolour on paper, each 224 × 120 cm, Collection Museum Folkwang

The starting point for the drawing growing rooms (a piece of wild life) is the architectural floor plan of the Museum Folkwang building by David Chipperfield.

A self-contained forest ecosystem, which has grown and proliferated in many layers over the years, fills the space above this floor plan.

The museum building becomes a greenhouse.

Lines left free in the drawing are transformed into implied spaces full of plant structures. Everything merges and is interrelated.

The type of vegetation, the plants and animals, are taken from a natural forest cell. A natural forest cell is a piece of nature that has not been interfered with by man. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia currently has a network of 75 designated natural forest cells with different research focuses.

In my drawing, I am focussing on a section of a local natural forest cell. In it, I am exploring the interplay between two tree species, that of a mature copper beech and that of a young oak. The two trees have a lot of players. You can recognise countless other plant and animal creatures as well as microorganisms. I show their co-operation and survival strategies, their MITEINANDER in the form of symbiotic communities.

The trees are not depicted in any particular season, but the four seasons take place simultaneously. Growth is also interwoven from germination to withering and death. Life and death in one.

It all happens above and below the ground. The root systems are connected with countless mycorrhizal and mycelial structures. Mosses and ferns grow above them. They are home to insects and beetles. Wild herbs, flowers and grasses that occur in North Rhine-Westphalia grow around the trees. You will also find flowers and herbs that are native to the area around the Folkwang Museum. Thistles, sorrel, dandelions and daisies can be discovered.

Through drawing, I reflect on the complex structure of coexistence between plants, animals and humans. Drawing allows me to leave the ground of reality and think about visions, desires, abysses, fears and solutions. The drawing as a ‘Museum Folkwang greenhouse’ shows a wondrously proliferating universe. 

Acquired with funds from the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation.

Detail growing rooms, 2025, three-part, ink and watercolour on paper, each 224 × 120 cm, Collection Museum Folkwang