My art is shaped by childhood experiences of the post-war period.
Rebuilding the destroyed world could be seen everywhere at the time, and the reuse of broken materials was a matter of course. That was long before recycling or upcycling became an issue.
Children’s eyes saw the disaster of ruins and piles of rubble as aesthetic structures. Ruins were part of everyday life and invited children to play. The variety and colorfulness of the different materials, especially the bricks, gave rise to creative activity. What adults did for a purpose, children imitated with their creative play. …
The Paper Reliefs are a series of six editioned paper-pulp reliefs with collage and hand-coloring, completed by Frank Stella in 1975. A special papermaking mould was constructed for each image from brass screening and mahogany slats sewn together with brass wire. The moulds were dipped into a cotton slurry to form a thick relief of pulp, which was hand-patted to improve edge definition. The pulp on the screen was colored both in the wet stage and after it was dried and removed from the mould.
Stella collaborated with Kenneth Tyler and John Koller at the HMP paper mill to develop a standard for each edition, although much of the coloring at the wet stage was done by the artist during frequent visits to HMP. All of the Paper Reliefs were hand-painted by the artist in his New York studio between September 1974 and November 1975.
Kenneth E. Tyler
Uncompromising dedication is the prerequisite for Strieder’s unique development, only it enables new discoveries. Coincidences are therefore not events out of nowhere, but insights that reveal themselves when their time has come.
Anna-Maria Ehrmann-Schindlbeck, text excerpt from the MONAS catalogue
Made from one piece and without cuts through the surface, my works are developed in accordance with wholeness.
Paper is always the first material for my folds and the basis for their transformation into other materials. In my search for further possibilities of expression, I came across new materials such as HDPE (high-density polyethylene), steel, linen, cotton and, in 2000, felt, which made complicated folds possible for me. The connection and combination of the same or different geometric shapes in the surface with which I operate offer an unimagined number of folding possibilities. They are further increased by the changeability of the individual modules (square, triangle, etc.).
So I see an inexhaustible ark of possibilities before me, which at the same time offers a great ability to analyze concrete art. During the folding process, the folded material transforms from the surface into an architectural structure, only to slide back into the surface as a relief. It is the idea of wholeness that fascinates me and encourages me to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible in order to solve complicated design issues.
Peter Weber, November 2024
In her works, Annette Wesseling cooperates with nature by folding colored cotton cloths several times and exposing them to natural sunlight and the weather outdoors over a period of several months or years. As a result of the long “exposure time” and unpredictable weather influences, the color intensity and hues of the cotton cloths change, creating unpredictable color gradients and concrete traces of light and shadow. Original images are created from the passing and manifestation of time.
The central theme of my work is the interaction of form and movement in space: how does a particular form/three-dimensional structure assert itself against the earth’s gravity, how does it stretch, how does it curve, and what vibrations can I “awaken” through my processing.
A major technical challenge is how I can make a certain shape out of metal, how to shape it, how to prestress it so that it can “defy” gravity and unleash its vibration. This process takes a long time and requires a lot of patience. I often have to design and build special tools for a particular sculpture. Knowledge of the properties of the metal is also important, helping me to shape the material, which is ductile but at the same time very hard, into the desired form. High-strength metals have a shape memory, which I first have to “erase” by overmolding, so that the sculpture becomes dimensionally stable.
Martin Willing