Stefanie Wolfson
Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
I was going through a rough time, creatively, when I printed“ Black Sea”. The piece began, again, as an old piece that I no longer felt connected to. I took a giant block of scrap wood I had in my studio, inked up with a mix of black and muddied red and just printed this black piece of wood on top of the original print. I was actually disgusted by this piece when I originally made it, but it’ s now one of my favorites.
My choice of composition varies from piece to piece. But I try to keep my style very organic and natural. If I feel like something needs to be a certain way, I don’ t question it. I let my intuition rule most of my artistic decisions. My palette is mostly light blues and blacks. I use these colors to help elicit that dreamlike quality that I strive for my work to have.
How do you go about naming your work? In particular, is important for you to tell something that might walk the viewers through their visual experience?
I find t challenging to naming my artwork. I feel like art should always get a grand title, especially abstract work like my own. In spite of this, I always choose titles which are very simple. My thought process is to find what is being represented in each work ad select the words which feel accurate. So yes, I do walk my viewers through their visual experiences in that way.
Dealing with the meditative aspect of nature, your approach seems to stimulate the viewer’ s psyche to unveil the elusive still ubiquitous channel of communication between perceptual reality and imagination and consequently works on both a subconscious and a conscious level. In this way, your works allow an open reading, a great multiplicity of meanings: associative possibilities seems to play a crucial role in your pieces. How important is this degree of openness?
The openness, in my work, is crucial to its meaning. I want my work to be able to be accessible to a wide audience, not just those in the art world. Art used to be made for common people to understand the world and history, but the evolution of modern art has limited accessibility as a means of elevating art o some elitist. I want people, regardless of their experience or knowledge of art, to be able to enjoy and relate to my work. I think the democratization of art is vital to its further progression.
Associative possibilities do, in fact, play a fundamental role to my pieces. My work relies on the viewer’ s perception and imagination. What my work represents to one viewer may be completely different to the next. I find that to be very interesting and love to explore that idea.