Over these years you have exhibited in several occasions, including your recent show Big Ideas in Small Packages, at the Blue Door Gallery, Yonkers. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, so before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?
I don’ t believe that an artist should make work based on how they believe people will perceive or react it. That will only stifle creativity. Feedback from viewers and peers; how they feel or what they think about when they look at a new piece, informs my own ideas about the meaning of it. I think of audience reception as more of a conversation with my work, rather than an important aspect in the preliminary decision making of the piece. After seeing what the audience responds to, I will take it into consideration and respond to it in a later piece. Everything can eventually come in to play – I don’ t like to count anything out.
Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Stefanie. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
Thank you so much for taking your time to talk to me. For the future, I would love to continue making more collages like the one I based“ Antarticus” on. I think I have a lot more to say with this process.
Something that I have been exploring in my work recently is the night sky. I’ ve been captivated by the night sky, the cosmos, and folklore that surrounds it for quite some time now. I’ ve been producing a lot of images of the moon – trying to capture its mesmerizing beauty through different mediums.
Recently, I have been working on a smaller scale. I’ ve been working on a new piece, which is currently untitled, that I’ m very excited about. It’ s an edition of linocuts, about 4 inches by 5 inches each, these will be used as sort of building blocks to create a larger piece when displayed. I plan to continuing exploring this kind of tile-like format. What I’ m most excited about with this new project is the freedom it affords, the small pieces can be displayed to fit any setting. It will be like augmenting the setting to become a part of the work itself, in a way, abstracting the real world.
An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape @ europe. com