Susanne Stähli: »diluting, trying, layering...«

Susanne Stähli's oeuvre is extremely versatile:  her métier ranges from paintings built up in glazing layers to space-light installations with colored glass to paste-applied color field painting. In recent years, the artist has increasingly devoted herself to ink paintings, in which she superimposes several layers of color like fine membranes. The eye adds these often differently colored layers to one tone. Appearing like tissue papers, the highly pigmented individual glazes seem almost tangible through their haptic effect. The substrate of these layers of paint is also an important component of her works: sometimes she lets the paint sink into the cardboard, at other times it dries on the sealed surface of stone paper.
The ink painting is thereby a quite lively technique, because it is difficult to control and allows the traces of processing to become visible. In the series One Stroke (from 2019), this interaction with the colored water becomes particularly clear: the pigments collect at the edge of the colored areas and thus create a frame, while at the same time the traces of the flowing water remain visible. This creates a contrast between flowing and boundary that intuitively transmits tension to the viewer.
Born in Munich in 1959, the artist studied painting at the University of Applied Sciences for Art and Art Therapy in Ottersberg, Lower Saxony, from 1982 to 1986. In 2006 Susanne Stähli was artist in residence at the University of Witten/Herdecke, where she has also lived and taught herself since 2007, in 2011 she won the »Kunst am Bau« prize in Bochum and 2021 in Willich. In the interview she explains how these different activities correspond with each other.

How would you describe your art?

My work is fundamentally about the examination of color, as the »most relative medium of painting«, as Josef Albers says. The interest in it has led in recent years to very different manifestations, from the large-format canvas to small-format series, with different materials, to installations, in which light and space are also included. The theme of reduction always plays a role.

How do you start with a work? How does your individual process begin?

With an approximate idea of the color and the search for the necessary shades. After that it's all about diluting, trying, layering...

You are active as an artist, and at the same time you have a teaching position at the University of Witten/Herdecke. Is there any overlap between the two?

I give basic artistic seminars for students of all faculties (e.g. medicine, dentistry, psychology, economics, etc.) as part of their studies. The main focus is on different possibilities and approaches in the artistic process, independent of figurative or »abstract« subjects. It is about a differentiated way of perception, less about contents that are directly related to my personal work. Nevertheless, my inner attitude towards artistic work certainly flows into it.

Since 2018, you have been working exclusively with paper. How did that come?

My interest in the connection between color as a material and color in its sensual effect led from the layering of thin acrylic glazes on canvas to foil installations on glass surfaces, i.e. working with colored, immaterial light, to the impasto application of dense oil paint.
With the works on paper, above all, the element of the liquid, watery was added. With the paper works I appreciate the lightness, also the discovery of how much the carrier, the different papers, influence the appearance of a color.

Why do you work with ink? What do you like about this technique?

I use it to investigate the properties of water-based paint or liquid with ink. Ink is highly translucent, dries waterproof and at the same time does not lose its color brilliance.
In this context, controlled chance is interesting to me. One of my exhibitions was titled »Precise Flow.« That gets to the heart of it.

Some of your works consist of only a few, extremely thin layers of paint. What is it that appeals to you so much about pictorial reduction?

Reduction was and always is my theme. The concentration in the moment and the knowledge that especially in the ink works there is little to nothing that can be corrected, once set remains, I find exciting and experience it, if it succeeds, as very satisfying.

Do you dedicate yourself to specific color groups for a period of time and what influences your color choices?

Often one work leads me into the next. This can be a deeper interest in related colors or the exact opposite, the contrast to them. I am also interested in the supposed »non-colorfulness« of certain colors such as gray, black and white. Out of this interest then also series or series of works develop, which deal with certain color themes.

How do you think color should be perceived?

With naturally changing light. Unprejudiced looking. With time.

What color has your world?

Every colour.

Name: Susanne Stähli
Year of birth: 1959
Place of birth: Munich
Place of residence: Witten
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/s.staehli_kunst/
Website: https://susannestaehli.de/