Please introduce yourself:
My name is Penny Lewin-Hetherington and was born in Kew, Melbourne, Australia. I now live in Ballarat, Australia with my husband Andrew.
I am a painter, sculptor and animator.

What is your definition of art?
To me, art is defined as a way for an artist expresses themselves through visual images.

Why have you become an artist?
I have wanted to be an artist since I was very young and it was something I felt I was given the gifts to do. It was always something I felt a strong connection to and went to the length to study it at university. Studying the visual arts helped me to find out who I am as a person and to develop my skills further.

What is your favourite artwork of your own and why?

Renaissance Nightclub

My favourite artwork of my own changes constantly but at the moment it would have to be ‘Renaissance Nightclub’.  It is a painting I created recently and I love it for its quirky sense of humour.  It consists of two 18th Century European ladies being ‘chatted up’ at a masquerade ball by two gentlemen. I have deliberately simulated the masquerade ball to the nightclubs of today (In other words, a meat market).

How do you work?
Mostly I paint with coloured acrylic on canvas or cardboard, and then I will layer the painted surface with cross hatched lines made by coloured gel pens or biro.  Later I might stick items to the surface such as fake flowers, beads, bits of metal chains, glitter, sequins, plastic scatters, objects I’ve made from modelling clay, plastic toys, natural found objects (seedpods, pressed flowers). I really like to go to town when constructing an artwork.

Bonnie and Clyde

Who is your favourite artist?
Even though there are many artists that I love and inspire to, my most favourite artist of all time would have to be Australian artist Charles Blackman.

When I study a painting of his, I feel like we think on a similar wavelength. Like me, Blackman paints through his emotions and I like the way he strongly depicts the feeling of vulnerability in his art, particularly in his ‘Alice in Wonderland’ series. The image of Alice is really of his ex wife ‘Barbara Blackman’ who became blind in her early 20′s. Through losing her sight, she became vulnerable to the environment around her. I remember reading in Barbara’s autobiography, ‘Through the Looking Glass’, where Barbara admitted that Charles were her eyes.

I think also I admire the way Blackman seems to be in touch with his feminine side, which is rare in a male. His works are gentle and sensitive.

What makes me a little different from Blackman is my work too can be quirky such as my amusing concepts in ‘Renaissance Nightclub’ or my actions of sticking objects to the painted surface.

Emotional Angel

What is your favourite material to work with and why?
I consider myself a mixed media artist and love to work and experiment with many types of materials. It is my way to explore what certain mediums do and how they react to each other. I also like to use certain materials to express the emotion I want to convey. Bright colours are also an important factor when choosing materials.

Dreaming

Could you live without making art?
No! Creating things has become a way of life for a very long time now. To stop constructing would be like chopping off a limb.  It is my outlet of expressing my feelings.

A Perfect Gentleman

Princess of the Valleys

Where can others find you on the web?
Facebook page
http://www.redbubble.com/people/pennyoz
http://www.artbreak.com/Pennyoz
http://www.wooloo.org/artists/18667
http://pennyoz.deviantart.com/
http://www.paintingsilove.com/artist/pennylewinhetherington

Thank you very much for answering my interview, dear Penny!

All photos © Penny Lewin-Hetherington

Please introduce yourself:
I’m an artist, living on Paros. Painting is my earliest memory of my second year. Now I am seventy-six and I continue working daily and intensively. I lived in different countries of several continents and in different cultures.

What is your definition of art?
A hope.

Why have you become an artist?
I started in my second year. Now I am 76 and work more intensively than ever.

I can’t answer the ” why”. The “how” answers itself while I work.

What is your favourite artwork of your own and why?
Always the one I’m working on.

I don’t look back as far as my work is concerned. Also not forward.

How do you work?
Intensive. Every day many hours.
I do not believe that I’m the master of the process of creation.
I am a participant of the process.

Who is your favourite artist?
Myself.
Every other answer would neither be honest nor helpful.
In order to be able to gon on I have to be as most aware as possible.
But of course, I love, admire and appreciate many artists.
All of them before me have been and still are my teachers.
But in order to contribute my dialect to the language of art,
I had to (and still have to) depart from them.

What is your favourite material to work with and why?
I work with all materials I can grap.
In painting my favourite material is oil and pastell.

Could you live without making art?
Creation is not a choice for me.
It’s my life. Therefore: Without creating it does’nt matter wether I breath or not
- I’m dead for sure.

Where can others find you on the web?
http://www.facebook.com/cpseibt
http://www.cpseibt.com/

Vielen Dank, Herr Seibt!
All photos © C.P.Seibt

Here comes another artist interview, this time from Switzerland. Morgann’ and I met on the web and she is inspired by Morten who started my series of “Artists I like” in 2009.

Please introduce yourself:
Morgann’ Gyger, 36 years old,
From Pully, Switzerland.
Making mainly watercolor but also, oil painting, drawings and photos.

What is your definition of art?
Art is the only way to materialized our thoughts feelings and dreams. It makes the invisible visible. It captures a moment, as to leave a trace.

I often feel the need to paint, to draw or to write when I’m sad or melancholic. It is a good therapy!

Art is the essence of humanity. The only thing that differentiates us from an animal or plant. This is the best way I found to understand and describe the world around me and my inner world. Art has a divine essence.

Why have you become an artist?
I don’t know if anyone chooses to become an artist. You are or you are not!
There are many ways to express artistic abilities. Philosophers are also artists in my opinion.

My grand-father, my oncle, my mother, my father are or were all oil painters, so it was natural for me to paint. In 2007 I met Morten Gjul. A Norwegian painter who works mainly with nordic modern watercolor. He got me to know his technique. And it moved me a lot. It has been a kind of revelation I think.

What is your favourite artwork of your own and why?
Well… maybe that one I named «Wire». It has been quick and easy to paint… without planning anything. A nice memory of painting. But ask me tomorrow, and it will be another one …

How do you work?
I work in my kitchen, which I use as an art studio … lack of anything better!
Sometimes I have a precise idea of what I want to paint with a concret motive. Sometime I just play with pigments and water and let the chance guiding me into something

Who is your favourite artist?
Morten W. Gjul for the reasons I explained before. But they are many others like Tor-Arne Moen, Lars Lerin, Odd Nerdrum, Carmelo de la Pinta, H.-R. Giger for painters. The sculptor Nuccio Fontanella.

What is your favourite material to work with and why?
Watercolor, because it gives a liberty of letting flow and to accept to loose control and let things happen by themselves. Sometimes water and pigments express themselves on the paper and you have to deal with it. That is a great lesson in the everyday life. I also love the transparency and the light effect it brings, pure and vaporous.

Could you live without making art (and why/why not)?
Now I’ve tried… definitely not!

I could live without painting but I for sure would have expressed myself in another form of art. I have been ballet dancer many years, it brings me a lot too.

Where can others find you on the web?
Here: http://web.me.com/morgann.gyger/Morgann_Gyger_Art/Home.html
or on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/morganngv

Merci pour tes réponses, Morgann’!
All photos © Morgann’ Gyger

My parents used to collect my paintings from the very beginning. A few years ago my father scanned them and sent me the digital versions on a cd. Here’s a best of my paintings from the age of three:

As “Je ne joue plus” (I don’t play anymore) was one of the sculptures I like best, I was happy to see that the matching painting was still availabe:

Another one featured in Antoine’s interview here on my blog was “Jeux dangereux” (dangerous games). Though he had changed it a bit in color in the meantime, I still like it a lot:

Both paintings have been put with others of mine and of friends. Now everytime we see them it makes us think of Antoine who is a great inspiration to me!

Oh and by now you can find him on Facebook too!

Merci  beacoup, Antoine!

Please present yourself:
My name is Silja Korn and I am 45 years young. Diue to a car accident I became totally blind. I’m married for 12 years now and we’re having a son. I’m working as the first state registered nursery teacher.

What is your definition of art?
To me art is if you can see more tan the obvious.

Why have you become an artist?
Painting has already been one of my great passions before I became blind. It helped me keep my balance after school. When I couldn’t do it anymore I fell into a deep hole. And I thought I’d never be ale to do it again. Until I ot to know through a mailing list fo parents that there are blind children who are painting. So I thought if they can do it, well so can I! Making art is helping me to express my feelings in a better way.

Which is your favourite artwork of yourself and why?
I don’t have a favourite artwork. But one has especially challenged me: it was created during an exhibition. It easures 120cm x 120cm. The organisator of the exhibition asked me to finish it during the exhibition. It was challenge because I usually paint on smaller canvasses. It’s not easy to keep the orientation working on a big canvas if you cannot see anything. But I realised it can work but I have to concentrate much more. And it also takes longer to fill it. It needs more persistence.

How do you work?
I’m painting with my hands, with spatulas, brushes and other material. I use a lot of feelable material in order to help me find the colors again later.

Who is your favourite artist?
I don’t have a favourite artist who inspires me. Everything I’ve made so far came out of myself.

What is your favourite material to work with and why?
With sand, mussles, stones, paper, splints and structure pastes. This helps me to get the necessary structure on the canvas. After the painting has dried I can have a haptic experince with it.

Could you live without being an artist?
Well it would be possible but making art is satisfying me more. It makes me proud to finish an artwork and to present it to the public. I’d miss that feeling.

Where can others find you on the web?
On my website www.siljakorn.de
and on Facebook.

All photos (c) Silja Korn
Translation: Annette Schwindt
Thanks for the interview, Silja!

I have started to add some figures and other details to the already existing painting “Stay on these roads”. I’ll add some more to the left side too as soon as I find the time for it.

Annette Schwindt about her artistic work

Besides working in her one-woman agency schwindt-pr, Annette Schwindt pursuits a big hobby whenever she finds the time for it: creating artwork, painting, making sculptures, taking photos… For this passion she has opened a virtual platform with her website schwindt-art.com and her facebook page. So I’ve made an interview with Annette Schwindt about art for Kulissenblog.

You’ve said in an interview that you’re painting and drawing for as long as you can remember. When did you start to artistically express yourself more intensively?
I had additional art education as a child already and have learned the basic techniques there. In school I had really good art teachers and also took part in competitions for pupils.  I’ve always expressed myself artistically, in painting or with different kinds of sculptures or collages or with photography, I was always in contact with other artists and looked more closely at their work.

Then often one thing leads to the other. A video artist has asked me once to make photos of him for his project and that’s how I discovered that I have an eye for portrait photography. I do that often ever since and with great passion. Unfortunately I don’t have much time for painting… This only happens in eruptions whenever something has to get out of me.

What is it that art gives you – especially in comparison to your main work as a communications consultant?
Art is a form of communication too, I can perfectly let go making art. And it’s mainly the artistic work I’m after. An idea appears, MUST get out, no matter how late it is, and then literally has to be given birth to.  Sometimes I’m “pregnant” with some projects before they finally get out eruptively. When I’ve succeeded to do that, I’m not interested much in most paintings anymore. My concern is the creation, the haptic experience too, working with different material.

Where have you learned to paint?
Not at all. I’m quite disrespectful about that. I don’t care if something relates to a certain school. It’s all about the making. If I go to an exhibition I have a look at HOW things are made rather than looking at the esthetical ensemble. Of course I like some artworks more than others but most of the time it’s because I’m inspired by the way it has been created. After visiting an exhibition I’m often so filled with impressions and inspiration that I have to start to create something myself immediately. And then I also make artwork that is not so typical for me like the portrait of Mer.

What and how do you paint? Where do you find your inspiration?
That depends. Sometimes I just feel the need for blue and then I do it. I rarely have a plan beforehand. It evolves while working. On other days I have a new material that I want to try because it looks so interesting or feels so extraordinary. Another time I’ve seen or taken a photo that I want to transport into a painted picture or I’ve been to an exhibition and have to let something out. That’s why I prefer to work alone. Sometimes I have friends here who come to paint with me. But then the conversation about what they do is more interesting to me than my own work.

You’ve sold some of your artwork too. Is art a business for you? Do you have an economic interest too or is it just a postive side effect to make money with your artwork?
No, art is not a business for me, but an inner necessitiy. My way of finding my balance, a possibility to relax completely. I often give away paintings for free to friends or family or if someone likes anything particularly. As I said: for me it’s about the making not about the product or money.

One of your paintings, “Hexenkessel”, went on tour in March 2009 Can you tell a bit about this project?
“Hexenkessel” is a twin painting that has been made with extra pastous acrylics by pressing two canvasses of 100x100cm to each other. One of them is hanging in our living room and is always a subject of conversation with guests. The second one is only standing in a corner and so I took it out to the riverside here in Bonn. It was very interesting to see how people reacted to “art on tour” and to see how the painting looked in different environments.

On your schwindt-ART blog you’re writing in English only. Why is that?
My exchange about art is mainly with friends and other artists who don’t speak German. Everyone can understand English to some extent. The whole thing once started on myspace anyway.

On schwindt-ART you present your own art and you also present artist who inspire you. Which artists are your favourites? Which artist would you still like to interview?
Oh dear, there are a lot of them… I’m inspired by many artists for many different reasons. I’ve only just taken part in a worldwide art project by Farzad Kohan (USA) . The sculptures of Antoine Josse (France) are very inspiring to me and the water colors of Morten W.Gjul (Norway). I’d like to interview Magne Furuholmen who inspired me in 2005 to get involved with art agin more intensively.

Which creative projects are you working on at the moment?
Unfortunately I have no time to work artistically at the moment. But my husband and I started a little photo series of coffeee faces for fun on facebook. It all started with a painting of a friend during our last painting session together. And I’d like to make some more hairy cubes to have a whole hairy series (I still have a lot of my cut off hair here, so there’s plenty of material available).