TheWhite art
Photographer and freelance paper artist
Embossed relief pictures and three-dimensional objekts
using own handmade cotten paper
The fact that my craft skills in paper-making and creating embossed reliefs using lino-cuts are self-taught allows me to adopt a completely free approach to my work as an artist.
When you work, observe and experiment empirically, following your own inspiration and experience, you discover paths and ways which are completely your own.
I use the old traditional method of lino-cutting to create my master relief. Unlike lino-cuts for making prints, in my masters the scooped-out and cut- away areas need very time-consuming preparation to give a smooth, clean finish – this is not necessary when printing from a lino-cut, as these areas do not show up at all in a print.
The material I use is exclusively unbleached natural cotton. During the paper-making process this material behaves differently from cellulose - unpredictable, unusual, like cloth, firm yet soft – it inspires me to use it to shape my ideas and give them form.Paper-making used to be described as “the white art” and I have stayed with my preference for the colour white.
Through ever-changing light conditions my relief pictures in white offer a play of light and shade in every possible variation. The colour white gives precedence to the shape, the form, the texture and the very nature of the material itself and does not push itself to the fore, it creates a clarity and a lightness, and makes the viewer aware of a need to take a closer look. And the viewer often begins to feel a spontaneous urge to follow the lines of the embossed relief with a finger to acquire additional sensual haptic information.
At the moment I am concentrating on exploring the theme of Nature and the infinite and creative variety of her creations. I am deeply impressed by the diversity and variety of these forms and shapes, and drawn towards the task of identifying the individual amongst this rich abundance. And so I will take certain plants home with me to observe them more closely and to feel my way into the world of these plants before I design and emboss my “ Meadow Dreams ” in cotton. The “ Meadow Carpet ” on the wall, raised up away from the ground, seems strange to us, but because of the unusual perspective and colour we can experience the meadow anew, as though we are seeing it for the first time.To show this world from an “ eye level ” perspective and to concentrate our attention on the otherwise inconspicuous is my aim in my art.
Further examples of my work can be viewed on my website.
www.weisse-bilder.de
