Lea Grebe (b. 1987, Munich, Germany) lives and works in Munich.

Lea Grebe studied Painting and Graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich under Prof. Axel Kasseböhmer, completing her studies as a master student in 2018. She also holds a Magister Artium in Art Education, Art History, and Modern German Literature from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Lea Grebe has received grants and scholarships from the City of Nuremberg, Stiftung Kunstfonds, and the State of Bavaria (Cité des Arts, Paris). Her work has been shown in institutions such as Kunsthalle Mannheim, Museum Sinclair-Haus, and Museum Wiesbaden, and is represented in the Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany

Lea Grebe’s art deals with the observation of nature at the intersections of science and technology. Based on the artist’s personal archive of insects found dead, which was built over the last couple of years, a wide variety of questions for new works emerges. For her, the class of insects is exemplary of the creatures that surround us and the ecosystems they animate. Insects reflect and analyse man’s interest in the orders imposed by nature. Her small bronze sculptures of individual animals and plants refer to a reprocessing of nature that transforms living flora and fauna into relics of conservation and musealisation.

 „Aggregation refers to a gathering of animals of one or more species that happen to be in the same place at a specifictime—either by chance or due to an external cause—without any social bond existing between them. For this reason,aggregation is also referred to as a “pseudo-society.”

 In her series “Cocooning,” Lea Grebe explores the forms of insect cocoons and plant galls. In these organic objects,which represent both a shelter and a form of symbiotic coexistence, the artist sees models for human behavior. She usesvarious media such as bronze, ceramics, and photography to open up different perspectives on the theme on a fictionallevel.

 The exhibition space resembles an ecosystem—a fragile structure in which the works coexist symbiotically. The coco-ons from the series “Cocooning IV,” 2023, have found their place within the architecture of the room and nested there.In these sheltered niches, they can incubate, grow, and hatch in peace. Like a breeding room, the entire space is floodedwith yellow light radiating from the floor. The light and color vibrate before the eyes; the color warms, yet is at the sa-me time repellent and tiring for the viewer’s experience.

Insects are the matrix of our world; omnipresent and rich in species, they keep complex ecosystems running. In Hive(1–6), Lea Grebe exploresthe wild bee. Fragile formations in warm shades of yellow spread across six sheets of paper;the work was created using soft, finely ground pastel chalks that were then sieved and applied with a brush. This evokesassociations with pollen, as well as honey and wax. Due to the application of the material in watercolor-like layers, theimages seem to vibrate; additionally, there are sprayed elements.

Lea Grebe combines this technique—in which paint isatomized and applied in tiny dots—with the dynamism of swarming bees. The artist does not produce anthropomorphicstereotypes but is interested in the animals’ territory as well as the processes inside the beehive. The first sheet addres-ses metamorphosis, depicting larvae bedded in pollen within their cells as they pupate. Next, the audience sees two whi-te specimens developing from yolk-yellow eggs within their protective wax chambers. The narrative then shifts to theactions of adult bees performing a dance. Delicate black drawings allude to the serpentine movements through whichthe colony communicates information about food. The final sheet offers a view of plate-like honeycombs and their busyinhabitants.Through her art, Lea Grebe explores the social organization of wild bees; at the same time, the elements shedepicts do not always correspond exactly—edges overlap and blur, and the forms dissolve at their edges: We can onlyspeculate about what exactly is happening inside the hive or in the swarm’s collective consciousness.