Stefan Thiel

"My studio is in the drug dealers center of Wedding."

In practice and in theory I took a step back from Photography and examined the development of the ideas behind silhouettes to the ideas of Photography, with their Voodoo capacity in the past to its Power potential today. What hypnotic effect does watching a gently moving water surface have on us  and what cognitive value does a human or architectonic silhouette have today?

Can I use paper cut outs as a digital network to identify Objects, people and goals?

In these investigations I discovered that in in the past 200 years this art form has changed and developed into a hybrid with different levels: the photographic, the performative, the graphical and the decorative level. These layers overlap with the digital photographic world of the paper cut out.  Relevant are Plato and Godfather the Film.

What is it about your studio space that inspires you?

… My studio is in the drug dealers center of Wedding. The arab families and the Hells Angels share the drug market near Leopoldplatz + the Beuth Hochschule. So it is a quiet and safe area and the gentrification goes slower than in other places. The studio is cheap and saved by the dealers.

What sounds, scents and sights do you encounter while in your studio?

I prefer music by Caesar Franck, Morton Feldman, Helmut Lachenmann, Richard Strauss, J. S. Bach, Maurice Duruflé, Paul Hindemith

What is your favourite material to work with? How has your use of it evolved throughout your practice?

Paper

What themes do you pursue?

Nature, Portraiture, Sex, Genre (everything in my vicinity), bourgeois life.

What advice has had the biggest impact on your career?

To follow my instinct

If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be?

Der Garten der Flora von Poussin

If you weren´t an artist, what would you be doing?

Running a Spaetkauf with exhibitions an concerts

What are your favourite places besides your studio?

Muellerstrasse in Wedding

GALLERIES