Under the motto Urban Concepts, 10 artists from Hamburg and the surrounding area will be presenting two of their works each in the GRACE DENKER GALLERY from February 29, 2020, thus providing an insight into their creative work and making people curious to find out more. The different approaches, ideas and concepts create a special, inspiring experience.
In the following article, get to know the exhibitors better and gain an insight into their artistic work and artistic concepts. The exhibitors answer questions about their artistic process, how they start and what materials they use. They also explain what influence their art can have on the world.
Alena Kuschnereit, Carsten Müller, Gunda Oppermann, Nassim Aslani, Nekissa Behroozfard, Olga Chirkova, Sabine Kisvari, Teodora Dumitrache, Yorjander Capetillo and Vanessa Vilchis comment in the interview.
Register for the vernissage at: https://www.artcraftliving.com
Vanessa Vilchis
Art for me goes beyond something physical, it is something about senses and emotions, it has been part of the healing and understanding process of my own life. It is the most honest way I have to reveal my thoughts and show my essence.
Art is also about transmitting and embracing all those needs that we have to express ourselves. It is one of the main engines of life and its constant and inevitable progress. It helps the human being to search and find himself, hence its great importance. Art is able to move consciences, to change the world and the way we see it.
When an idea comes to me, it's easy to imagine it in a painting, however at the moment I am faced with an empty canvas, everything changes. The same idea is transformed as I advance with my work, the piece guides me, speaks to me and inspires me. In the process of creation, magic is generated. What was no clear at first about how to capture it, little by little the work in progress gives me an idea of how to continue. Everything becomes fixed.
Usually, I like to work with materials that allow me to overlap the necessary painting layers until reaching what I want to express. Materials that lead me to highlight the sensitive and tangible side of the human body. I work a lot with oil and acrylic on canvas or wood.
The preparation for work on wood allows me to thin the paint and make a watercolor effect, but a little bit thicker. I like to experiment with textures. To portrait older people gives me the freedom of playing with their different skin tones, their wrinkles, imperfections, contours, and degradations. The colors selected are always related to some feeling at the moment of painting. I focus my interest on sensations that certain colors incite me.
The message behind my painting: In my speech, I suggest another type of reading about age, a different way to look at it. I show the need for movement, the inevitable process of the decadence of human flesh and its mental transformation. With contrasting backgrounds I completely break my figures, this is a vanishing intention and an evolution exercise.
We live in a world that is too fast, bombed with images and information, saturation and social media. We live in a world full of stereotypes and aesthetic concerns. To feel good we need a perfect body, money, or thousands of "likes" on Instagram. We live in a false reality. The fact of living so fast day by day makes us focus on parts that are less relevant. For me, the main thing is to think about the importance of time, the way it goes and how it reflects on us. The significance of turning into an older person and how life becomes ephemeral. I emphasize the beautiful side of senility, such as physical and psychological. The joy of being able to grow within time, the path that brings us a little bit closer to our destiny, which is death. Life is nothing but a journey to serenity. The key to success is linked to self-knowledge, to less banal needs, to accept that we are growing and it is important not to miss the greatest show. As Merlau Ponty said: “Time is formed in our body experience”
Olga Chirkova
With painting, I try to capture not only the visual but also the tactile and emotional component of the object through the bright color, shape, texture, broad strokes of palette knife painting to show the familiar things from a different perspective. Whether it is flowers, fruits, the sea or the mountains, everything has a soul, that's what I want to show in my paintings. I never had the fear of a blank canvas or paper even during my studies. For this, I thank my teachers who taught me to feel painting and drawing with feeling. I never make a pencil sketch before painting, but start with colors right away, because painting is passion and emotion. I use watercolors, acrylics, oil paints and good mood. I like to use different techniques because you can reveal the shape and colors differently depending on the material. I like to mix the techniques and watch how different materials interact with each other. I love watercolor, its vibrancy and flowing colors. And I also love acrylic because of its ability to be watercolor and oil at the same time. And of course the oil paints, I love them for their chic texture, the broad strokes that can shape the form, the texture, convey the background and the foreground and show the depth. I want to show how I see things by combining certain images in form but different in content, texture and color, expression. I do this by trying to bring in more color than in the usual classical painting and also by playing with contrasts, highlights and reflections without rules. It's more of a story about how I feel today and how I see the color today. With my art I want to show the seconds of the captured beautiful moment that inspires people to see the beauty in everything that surrounds us.
Nassim Aslani
I choose a topic, move it around in my head and create images that I then put on canvas.
Oil paint because I have been working with it for more than 30 years and I know this material very well. It suits my style very well.
I want to show with my pictures that reality is transformed into art in the imagination of man.
Carsten Müller
I don't usually have anything like a concept - which is probably because I work with different media, although I definitely have a preference for photography and light sculptures.
My idea or concept of art is that of an emotional communication between my work and the viewer. Each of my works is to be understood as an answer to a direct or indirect question. A question that was either posed from outside or that developed intrinsically.
When a question intrigues me, the research phase begins. In this phase, I experiment: I look for the "right" methodology and the right materials to find an answer to this question. Often, further ideas arise during the research, which in turn lead to my own projects.
When I take photographs, my primary medium is light. Light creates the image. In the studio, I leave nothing to chance. The light is generated by flashes and manipulated with ready-made, homemade or improvised light shapers so that I can photograph the object exactly as I imagine it. Even when I work outdoors, I let the existing light guide me. It determines what I can photograph, when and how. If I think I have discovered an image but the light is not right, I come back at a later time.
And the pursuit of perfection continues: the paper must also match the motif. The type and material, structure and color as well as the coating of the paper play an important role and should be selected carefully.
I show things as I see them. In my paintings or sculptures you can see the world through my eyes. Whether that is of interest is something only you, the viewer, can decide. I do not claim to change the world or you with my work, but I would like to sharpen your view. If after looking at one of my works you say: “I have never seen it like that before”, then I have achieved my goal.
Sabine Kisvari
Dreams - in painting I allow myself to dream. Dreams can be big and are of course completely unplanned. But since everything in life is predetermined anyway, I trust that, ideally, I will find the rough and untamed beauty of storm-battered nature in my paintings. I love surprises and challenges, they are the spice in my soup. And so I approach the painting process in a completely intuitive way. My deep relationship with nature often allows (unplanned) approaches to plants, stones, landscapes and earthy surfaces to emerge and be recognized. And then I am happy to see the depths of my soul.
The expression in my paintings comes from the haptics. Cement, marble powder and lime (Intonaco), ash and sand create irregular surfaces with cracks and fissures that the viewer wants to touch in the finished picture. Not everything always stays intact: traces of transience are part of life. Pigments, inks, stains with binding agents that are sometimes made by myself breathe the natural, matte color into the works.
Nature is my inspiration, abstraction is my freedom. Contemplation, sensual, thoughtful. My works are little gap fillers. They are as quiet as stepping on moss while the loud, colorful world trumpets out its fun.
Alena Kuschnereit
Art is something alive. It changes, it fascinates people. With art you can explain a lot of things that you can't put into words. I think that my job as an artist is to pass on this life-creating energy. There are a lot of emotions in every work. I start quickly to get rid of the feeling of fear. With a lot of color and movement I work my way through until the right thing emerges.
For a long time I only worked with oils because I really like the textures that result. And recently I've been experimenting with acrylics and pastels.
It was always an important question - what am I doing? Is my art moving or just decoration?! But the answer came when I thought about it more. I love to show the colors of life, the joy of being yourself and discovering yourself. And my works are a part of this process. Everyone can feel it in their own way.
Yorjander Capetillo
A white canvas is an invitation. It is paradoxically a “black hole” that absorbs me and puts me face to face with my ideas, but it’s not a place to stay. It is a place to use as a transitory moment. It is a place that I use as a "parking place" of my ideas. Some years ago I enjoyed the possibility to use the creative process as a trip, and the white canvas was a freedom space, the ship. Now I understand that it's very easy to get lost through this freedom and my work process is different. Nowadays I try to use the minimum time possible surfing on the canvas. I do my previous research before going in front of the easel and painting should be precise. I make sketches and I enjoy to exercise power over the fabric. That keeps the process “fresh”. Then my paintings can speak.
If the art piece is a beast, the materials are its skin. The materials are potential possibilities and the selection of them can guarantee some success. We can understand the materials as corporality in the art piece, and this corporality is the link between perception and concept. In my case, the selection of my materials has a direct connection with the old masters. I consider that materials have a strong speech, that is why we shouldn't ignore that we should domesticate that voice during the production process. In my case, I use traditional resources and they have a connection to the old masters. If the old masters were magicians; the materials were ingredients for possible spells. From the first moment I select my colors, I should believe I want to make something magical. I think we usually overwhelm the role of art in society (we put on it too much social responsibility). I think my art doesn’t want to transform anyone but wants to connect to individuals “one to one”.
I am someone who catches ordinary happenings and transforms them into symbolic choreographies. What I do differently from usual passer-by is to read another reality in daily life circumstances. I refuse to load life with more symbology; life is symbolic per se. My practice consists of dissecting my reality to expose its mysterious sides. I think every ordinary activity can have a beautiful significance if we can look properly. We are responsible for adding positive meanings to it. I play with concepts like Fate, God, Life, and its meaning. I work with the borders between reality and fiction magnifying the beauty of existence.
Nekissa Behroozfard
As a Hamburg artist, master's degree in Japanese studies and art historian with a focus on Japanese art and culture, I create high-quality unique pieces in which contemporary art and traditional Japanese techniques of Nihonga and calligraphy form a symbiosis.
For me, art is synonymous with aesthetics, the perception of beauty, tenderness and transience. I want to reflect these values, which are also the basis of Japanese aesthetics, in my paintings.
When I create a new painting, I go straight to the blank canvas with my brush, without making any preliminary drawings, and let the creative process take effect on me and the creative energy flow. I mainly use acrylic paints, Japanese ink and shell gold for this, as I think these media are best suited to the Nihonga technique I use.
In my paintings I mostly capture the beauty of the moment and transience. By creating aesthetic motifs, bright tones and my own understanding of representation and expressiveness, I want to create a feeling of joy and security in the viewer and bring a little light into life.
Gunda Oppermann
My art corresponds to contemporary art. The idea behind it - to reproduce modern, freelance art on canvas... Some works are very abstract, which I love very much,... some are landscape-based. But always with the intention of "coming from the gut". For me, my idea of art means reaching... capturing an audience. For me, the idea of art means... putting on canvas what is happening at the moment - with me - or in my environment, what I then want to express. As an autodidact, I taught myself a lot - but still - a lot... actually all of my work - comes from the gut.
Apart from the commissioned painting - here - OF COURSE - according to the template..:)
My empty canvas...actually, the idea comes FIRST, then the canvas of the appropriate size follows. So it never happens that I stand in front of a canvas and think about what I am going to design on it - no, first the idea comes in my head, in my heart and from my gut - only then comes the canvas :) ...in the right size.... perfect:)
Creating these works...on canvas, is done with heart and soul, passion and dedication. Sometimes a work that has been started just has to be put aside for a few days to be examined - and perhaps redesigned...but it is always exciting because the impressions change, the feeling changes - but in the end it is what comes out safely and with conviction.
Painting means everything to me! I have even painted until I was exhausted. But for me...and that was a good thing! I couldn't live WITHOUT it anymore!
I create my works with acrylic paint. I also use texture paste in many of my works because it allows me to convey depth and expression. Texture paste is a great material for highlighting various aspects of the work... for going deeper.
I decide depending on the idea of the work in my head... - which means that I tend to use texture paste for abstract works rather than landscapes. I find it fascinating to let off steam on large painting surfaces rather than on smaller ones. The way you handle large works is simply unique. You can let off steam... give free rein to the brush, the arm, the passion and the inner strength and intuition... unique!!!
I find out whether my art has an influence by the fact that I have already sold many works, that they are well received and liked, that I have completed commissioned works and that I have received a lot of encouragement - internally and externally -
The message of my art is simple - to bring art to the canvas - from what touches each person at the moment. To depict what one or the other person identifies with at the moment. To interpret feelings that everyone can understand - on canvas.
It really tears me apart when I can't put something on canvas straight away if I don't have the necessary material:)) e.g. when I'm out of the country. But then I'll do it - straight away> :)) Love and passion for painting... is everything,,
Teodora Dumitrache
What is initially perceived as a beautiful surface actually has unimagined depths. My work is determined by feeling, not by what is apparent. Therefore, my work is not influenced by external factors, but rather by what is internal. It reflects one hundred percent my feelings at the moment of creation.
Sketching a small fragment of this world by expressing my ideas and feelings through form and color is an essential part of my artistic vision. I see my art as a symbiosis of my feelings with the artistic means at my disposal, which allow me to look beyond the visible appearance. Discreetly, yet visibly, I design and paint the world.
The materials I use contribute significantly to the liveliness of the work. Their quality has to be right. I like to work with unusual colors (pastel and acrylic) and with materials that contain cotton (paper and canvas), with gold and silver leaf to create sculptural structures and thus give the work a personal and unique touch.
I mainly apply pastel colors with my bare fingers. This way I can better feel the texture, shapes and liveliness of the medium. The play of colors combined with creativity, emotional expression paired with lightness, all of this combines to create a very personal working style and an atypical, rebellious work.
I try to initiate a dialogue between the viewer and the work. I want to show the women's faces openly and directly, not to let their gaze become blurred or lost. I want to remind every woman that she has the right to be unique. At the same time, I want to point out to the viewer the incredible capacity of the human spirit to overcome difficulties and overcome challenges. Help people discover their inner fire and their potential for intense and authentic experiences. You always have to remain authentic and aware of what is going on around you. According to the motto: Open yourself up to beauty so that beauty reveals itself to you.
Duration of the exhibition: 28.02.2020 to 27.05.2020
Location: GRACE DENKER GALLERY, Hammerbrookstraße 93, 20097 Hamburg.
Opening: February 28, 2020 at 6:30 p.m.
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