Anne-Clara Stahl is a contemporary visual artist who lives and works in Vienna. The talented young artist works in painting and drawing.
In January 2021 she finished her studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna with a series of paintings entitled ‘Fabricius’.
In her work Anne-Clara Stahl develops the interplay of bodies.
While painting and drawing, which usually takes place in spatial silence she always perceives and treats the work as her counterpart.
Each piece gradually becomes a personality within this process.
Anne-Clara Stahl compares this interaction with her art that comes into being to an ongoing conversation about relationships.
By visualizing and describing conditions, places of longing emerge. In the last year, the focus has shifted more and more towards tracing stagnant movements and relationships.
The newly-perceived distance between people as well as the growing tendency to act alone can be observed in the paintings and thus testify for a certain period of time.
Her works from last year in particular have an exceptionally strong connection to the present.
Stahl is generally interested in human constellations, connections, coming together and drifting apart. She analyses relationships, distance and melding.
Anne-Clara Stahl describes painting as the meeting of restlessness and precision, and of patience and eagerness.
I am from Düsseldorf and grew up in an art-interested environment.
My father is an architect and his love towards drawing was passed on to me at a very early age.
He often drew with me, especially on our journeys.
So I got in touch with drawing since I was a child, starting to observe things on my own and I'm glad that this was my first encounter with drawing.
I remember situations, when we lay together on the floor of a church to draw the ceiling.
I still have these drawings. Our approach to store and keep all the memories and images of our journeys with us was drawing.
We often sat together for hours and drew.
The best present was, when he gave me his old aquarelle box. It already had such beautiful colour mixtures of its own on the palette. I still own it and regularly fill it with new colours.
At school, drawing was also my method to complete tasks. Once, when I had to give a lecture about the anatomy of the nose, I made a huge drawing of the nose and its structure.
I remember taking over the living room for such tasks, laying on the floor, drawing.
Through drawing I perceive the world and it always feels very familiar to talk about it.
I have lived alone a lot in my life so far and I enjoyed traveling alone. But as long as I had a sketchbook with me, I was never alone.
When I am old, these sketchbooks will fill a whole big shelf.
The place where this shelf is gonna be, may continue to be in Vienna. When I first came to Vienna I immediately felt very much at home. I like Vienna a lot.
Actually, I wanted to study art here for just one semester and then go back to Germany. But as it happens when you fall in love: the city made me stay.
So I continued and finished my studies here. Right now I could work from anywhere. It's always important to me, that there is a certain space to work. As long as it exists, I can exist.
Since I will have a child this year, there are certainly some new challenges coming up.
Unfortunately, I don't know many female artists who are open about the fact that they are also mums. I definitely want to change that.
There should be absolutely no disadvantage in sharing this fact. Actually, I am happy to embrace this challenge and task but also gift. I think being an artist is very compatible with having a child.
You just have to let it happen and of course organize it well. There are a couple of plans for the future.
But I'm taking it step by step. Right now, there are still a few pieces of work that need to be finished. With renewed energy I am now focusing on them again.
I experience working in the studio as a time to heal, especially in the recent past. It is always like returning to thoughts that have already found their own shape on the canvas.
It seems that after a while I always find myself working with new personalities. Each piece has its own nature and I find it exciting to work this out together.
When I paint, I am very thoughtful - I try to create a balance and to get involved with things that happen during the process. The whole thing resembles a network of relationships.
One intention could be to get closer to this relationship, to think about it and to also write about it. For me, drawing and painting have a lotto do with language. Painting is a language.
You don't talk and can stand in silence for hours, even though you are in a constant exchange with the work that is being created.
Narration is part of every piece, but I wouldn't say that it is its purpose.
I am driven by the desire to do things. I like watching people write and think, I am interested in movement.
I have a fascination for human relationships and their interweaving in the so-called "digital age".
Even thoughI am often caught up in the digital, I am a true lover of the analogue.
My work is based on observations that quietly find their way onto each canvas. In addition to all the pleasure of observation, I also enjoy the white surface and the idea of breaking it.
Working on and with painting resembles a conversation and I am always happy when I feel that we are in a good exchange.
It is an interchange of doing and waiting.
In the future, I plan to focus even more intensively on the mentioned themes.
I learn so much through pain-ting and it is incredibly beautiful to see that you get to know so many new places, just like on a journey.
In my everyday life I try to spend as much time in the studio as possible.
We live in a time of change, and the same goes for the art world. I think it's important to stay open, to allow new things to happen and, especially as an artist, to face the world with eyes that truly see.
My next works are already in the making. Once again, they deal with the question of the relationship between language and painting.
Photo credits for the artists profile pictures (except one) were taken by:
A very big thank you to the wonderful artist Anne-Clara for sharing her works and her story with us.
