Katharina Holstein-Sturm

Shapes/Shells/Roots

 

The next, logical step after the first human shapes reappeared in my paintings was sculpture.

I am building human shapes from  japanese paper. Its weight is next to nothing - 9 grams per squaremeter!

Contrasting the aetherical shapes with bright red indian daphne paper makes them come to life and gives them meaning.

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Lifesize human forms made from lightweight japanese paper are suspended in midair. They move slowly, catching every movement of the air.

The middle sculpture is immobile, stretching out ist roots in every direction.

 

The shapes, men and woman, seem fragile. You can see their intestines, roots growing from or into their chests or from their feet. The gentle white of their bodies stands in drastic contrast to to screaming red of what is growing. They come to life, they get charged emotionally by the color and the strangeness of the forms that sprout from them.

 

Vulnerability and strength are the end-poles of this work, depending on the point of view.  The life-size human shapes show their wounds openly. Skin is the border to the outer world. It shows, as humans move in the world, what traces and scars living leaves on body and soul. Naked, so to show the immediate impact of life, to show the contrast between strength and vulnerability. See-through to show the inner process of the body and the soul.

 

I like to polarize with my work, like to engage the viewer emotionally and create a direct bodily response.

 

Der nächste logische Schritt, nachdem 2016 die ersten Menschen wieder in meinen Bildern auftauchten, war die Skulptur.

Ich baue Hüllen aus Papier, sehr leichtem, zarten Japanpapier. Es wiegt fast nichts, 9gr pro Quadratmeter, nur ein Hauch.

Kontrastiert werden diese Menschenformen mit Papierformen aus leuchtend rotem, handgeschöpften Naturpapier.

Diese beleben die durchsichtigen, blutleeren Hüllen und verleihen ihnen Bedeutung.

Wie wäre der Kontakt zwischen den Menschen, wenn man in sie hineinschauen könnte und ihr Innenleben lesen könnte.