HLF 13 Selected works for the 13th Heidelberg Laureate Forum View ↓

Online Gallery · MARIA FOLINA

Geometry, computation, signal.

Selected digital works shaped by Neo-Constructivism/Memphis ideas, Isotype designs, De Stijl, Bauhaus grids, EBM, user manual pictograms and industrial post-internet visual noise.

Abstract Mondrian-inspired profile picture
Blue, black and yellow graphic artwork showing aircraft silhouettes, a large central plane and an airport ground marshal.
High above the tarmac, massive aircraft line up to obey a single ground marshal holding signals. No matter how powerful the machine, the plane simply follows its leader into the terminal (and his movements).

Part of a two-piece study on airports and "following the leader".
Orange, black and yellow graphic artwork showing workers moving a fragile package beside a traffic-control sign.
Down on the ground, the human chain takes over. Passengers and workers fall in line, carrying their fragile selves past a warning sign, blindly ordering and blindly following.

Part of a two-piece study on airports and "following the leader".
A direct confrontation with power and authority. The figure in points down, ordering you into a mandatory seat. Framed alongside Card IV (both the Tarot Emperor and the Rorschach masculine Card 4 inkblot) it turns simple interrogation into forced lack of choice.
A direct nod to René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images ("This is Not a Pipe"). Don't think too hard about it. If you already know, there's nothing left to contemplate. It is exactly what it says it is.
The dosimeter flashes. Something new. Something hopeful. The knowledge of the antimatter is within you. A glowing core pulsing beneath the skin while the cold assembly line hums around you.
Sometimes staying hidden isn't about fear, it's about staying in control. By throwing up a dummy sign on the surface, you give the world a harmless target to focus on while you do the real work underwater in complete peace. This piece is inspired by EBM, specifically S.T.O.P. from And One.
A search for a place to ground yourself when the noise gets too loud. Standing before unwelcoming doors and unknown elevators, the real question is: how do you take back control of your own adult mind?
A metalhammer here, a metalhammer there.
As the closing artwork to the Geneva Collection, this piece is a love letter of mutual respect between a scientist and Switzerland. The researcher raises a glowing Geiger counter as a gesture of alliance toward Geneva, while the Alps offer up an edelweiss in return. It reflects how the land and international minds welcome each other, keeping one another alive and safe, through a shared devotion to knowledge.
GENEVA End of Collection
KENSINGTON/LIVERPOOL New Collection
Our common digital language. Our obsolete articles, documentations and charts. Styled like a system chart from an early 2000s programming textbook, now behind gallery glass like a relic of abandonware. The Windows Vista to the soul.
Named after cryptography's classic placeholders for secure data, Bob and Alice turns digital encryption into a raw, human hug. Framed like a Polaroid with an open padlock, it asks what happens when we drop our defense systems to truly connect.
Artist’s Note

Beginning from the visual language of De Stijl and Neo-Constructivism (primary color, linear structure, modular balance) the works "fracture" the modernist grid through industrial imagery, scientific infrastructure, browser-era interfaces and compressed internet memory.

Rather than seeking perfect order, the compositions explore: "What happens when modernist clarity encounters technological pressure, surveillance aesthetics and the unstable digital world?"