Hello Kira and welcome to NotRandomArt. The current issue is revolving around the problem of communication and identity. Is there any particular way you would describe your identity as an artist but also as a human being in dynamically changing, unstable times? In particular, does your cultural substratum/identity form your aesthetics?
Hello and thank you for having me here. First of all, I don’t feel that there is any difference between being an artist and being a human being. I am both at the same time. I think the cultural background is influencing people in many ways. For instance, how you look at things, how you feel, how you act and react in situations. You are continuously under influence even though you’re not constantly aware of it.
And, I think it’s the same for art and aesthetics: I am influenced by my cultural background and also a lot by my childhood - but more subconsciously than consciously.
Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about your identity as a participant of the visual culture?
It’s hard to name one specific artwork that has influenced my artistic practice but the artist I am most inspired by is the danish ceramist “Christina Schou Christensen”. When I first saw her works, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Ceramic shapes combined with a glaze that looks liquid and “frozen” in motion. A game with viscosity at its finest!Her works made me nervous like a child, knowing that there is a way to create those liquid shapes made of ceramics instead of wax, glass or plastic.This encouraged me to dig deeper into how to achieve ceramics with a viscosity like this myself. I made a lot of tests with glazes to find out more about this volcanic material. With these tests I tried to find out how I can guide this glassy material to determine the exact time to catch the moment of running and then “freeze” it.
In the future I will also make tests combining these liquid shapes with colors. Luckily, there is an endless list of what’s possible with ceramics!
Many of your works focus on a very sensual experiences. You invite viewers to open their embodied emotions and experience the softness of the liquids, combined with the hardness of the rust. Could you share with the readers aesthetical, emotional and sensual background of this fascination?
When I started going to exhibitions, looking at other artists works, I found out that the most attracting pieces were those that gave me the feeling that I somehow needed to touch them.
Sometimes it was because of the surface, sometimes because of the shape, but mostly because I was fascinated about the material and how it might feel.
Is it sticky? Is it soft? Is it hard? Is it cold?
I still don’t know if the magical thing about this whole experience is that you’re never allowed to touch most of the interesting works even though you want to - or if the feelings would evolve if touching was allowed!?
So at one point I decided that it’s now up to me to find out and create works for which the viewer has the need of haptic experience.
It is impossible to avoid the topic of body consciousness, embodied emotions and the image of body that we see on your artworks, the best example being your installation: the `Nudity`. What is the vision of the body, revealed in your artworks?
My idea about “nudity” actually wasn’t to represent the human body. In the first place I wanted to place some ceramic objects in an untypical surrounding using not only the object but also the room where it’s in to find out what the room adds to it (or not).
The shower and the chains only work with each other - they need each other to be powerful.
I usually glaze all of my ceramic works because for me adding colors is one of the best parts because it's unpredictable. But during the process, I decided not to glaze the ceramic parts or to add any colors.
I just left them raw and unglazed - so to say naked.
What is the role of technique in your practice? In particular are there any constraints or rules that you follow when creating?
Learning techniques and trying to work with materials that are new to me, plays a very big role for me and satisfies my curiosity.
Nevertheless, I wouldn’t say that the creating process is based on any rules. I sometimes even try to force myself not to always start works from the same point of view.
Coming back to my work “nudity”, I tried to create a piece that can only be in one specific setting, in this case, the shower. This kind of restriction helped me to break through my usually working patterns, which is good because I get another view on what I am doing and it helps me to reflect my process and techniques.
The only “rule” that isn’t even a rule but more a habit is that I like to experience my work with my own hands. When I create, I like to poke, to stroke, to squeeze, to cut, to glue and whatever it takes to make me a happy mummy of my just created baby.
put into action and made conc my artistic practise but many.
I'm influenced by some philsophers as well as poets or musicians or dancers or visual artists but also by some places or landscapes or atmospheres ... For some years, I was used for example to go to India where I was used to follow som action. Some artistic action... If people can take something from this action this is great... but I don't want to give them “a specific message” or to control the translation of my experience.