STUDIO PROJECT
2024
What is it all about?
At the end of December 2023, I decided that it is time to follow a dream that was sleeping in my chest for so long: My own bright and big studio space. A room just for my art and me. So I searched for an affordable studio space in Bern.
Unfortunately I could not find anything that fitted my needs, lightwise and budgetwise. After a phase of frustration I started one last midnight search on google, and I couldn’t believe that I FINALLY found something. Not in Bern, but affordable… And so the adventure begun.
I WANTED
TO PAINT BIG
Of course there
was a catch …
I could rent the studio just for 3 months, from Feburary to April. Honestly, I knew it will be a tough timeline for what I had planned, but I was full of energy and highly motivated with my dream right in front of me. So I did the only thing that made sense: I said YES!
Awwww! I got my first ever Studio (in the end I luckily was able to extend the rent to 6 months).
YEAYYY !
The Project
Over the course of six months, from February to August 2024, I worked in my first ever “real” Studio in Bolligen. The idea was to create 4 huge canvas as I finally finally got a space to do that. I dedicated my time in the studio exploring the question on the ever changing process of life and how its shaping and effecting my role within. A significant part of my work here, is the confrontation with the fact that my parents grow older and since I live far away from them it seems like they get older in a kind of timelapse. Does my responsibility change? Do we kind of switch roles? Also the fact that they will not live forever and that it is just the natural way of life. How can you deal with a fact that is so impactful and inevitable? Can one find beauty in this neverending circle of experiences? Is it even our duty to find the beauty in it because we have to move on anyway? Can I be brave and stay hopeful that I will manage all of the things that happen and will happen one day?
I just wanted explore, document and challenge my biggest fears and question them, maybe find some courage and truly enjoy the act of creating a body of work that represents all that for me.
„“The Only Constant in Life Is Change.”“
The Approach
It all started (as so often) with sketches in my sketchbook of the paintings, so I could make a rough plan on how many canvas in what exact dimensions I would need to build. Planning roughly the colors, pigments and materials that I would need to mix. YEP - I wanted to make almost “everything” from scratch. In university when I was studying art (just 1 or 2 semesters haha) We painted with selfmade egg-tempera and pigments. In that moment I realized that I really enjoy the process of making my own colors. It takes more time but the beautiful thing is that you build a relationship with your colors, you dive deeper and with more intention into your creative process and that is what I loved about it. I think all that energy you put into your art, it mirrors in your work somehow. So, as I had a very limited time in the studio for my vision to realize (and because of the size of the paintings), I choose a way in between and used pigments - not egg-tempera - but a usual binder that is ready to go for building up my colors.
Media & Techniques
As I do very often, I combined digital and traditional techniques to plan out the compositions and colors. So I take a photo of the canvas and “model” the sketches on it to see how to improve the composition or try more and different colorways before I start drawing the sketch freehand on the canvas. I learned that this approach is the best for me, if I want to create effective and focused, but also gives me freedom to evolve the painting along the way later on the canvas. A strong preperation is always the key, otherwise I get lost very fast when I skip that step.
Challenges
During the process a lot of things happened in my personal life, so it came that I could’t work for nearly 2-3 months. While I was working on my second huge painting (the one that represented the beauty and bittersweetness of the ever changing environment we are living in) I found out that I am pregnant with my first child. How ironic life can be, right? As I was actively dealing with life and death and all of its challenges, it gave me one of the biggest changes that can happen to a women. It made me a mother. Never ever had I thought that this day will come. Interesting that it came in a time where I was working in my dream enviroment and made something I truly love and be passionate about. I had so many plans and suddenly they were flipped around by a new soul that wanted to enter my, our lives. :)
As I have my issues with big changes, I would lie when I was saying that it didn´t scared me. Actually I was terrifiyed and also a bit angry. Now that I worked in my dream Studio for the first time in my life I had to change plans. The morning sickness was so bad that I couldn’t go to the studio for almost 2 months. So time pressure got even more serious, but it also gave my work a nice twist and deeper meaning. I learned to let go of my plans and just flow in the moment.
Unfortunately I just finished three of my planned four big paintings due to the shorter timeframe.
Outcome & Next Steps
The project resulted in a series of three 1.50m x 2m canvas and one 2m x 3m that reframes my questions and fears on the ever changing process of life and how it’s shaping and effecting my role within. I plan to continue developing the series, painting the last big canvas and present them in a small exhibition. If you want to know how all my works and thoughts are connected, you are very welcome to visit my exhibition.
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