Art has
always been part of my life. As a small child I was already fascinated
by
seeing.
I loved to look at things, to observe light and shade and how they let
things dance in their play with each other.
I was
very much into playing a certain drawing game.
Someone makes a random scribble
on the paper
and I would "see" something in this scribble and complete the
drawing.
I was already fascinated at that time about how many different
possibilities there are to complete a drawing and
how many thousands of
pictures can be seen in one picture.
I grew up in the
60s and 70s in a working-class
family in a village near
together with lots of brothers and sisters. The morbid humour
of the Catholic mentality
in the very east of
The church was the centre of the village and
one had to face the priest in awe.
The
church services were held
in Latin, incense was swung around
and
under the rigid stares of
the terrifying statues of the saints
I started to get an idea of the dark sides of sinful
man. This gave the creeps to the little girl that I was.
And with a shiver I started to
look at the dark worlds. But I liked my little sins and didn't feel
like
going to hell.
So I turned my back on the church when I was a
rebellious teenager
but kept the desire to approach in my drawings again and
again the dark sides of the human being.
I knew at an early stage that there were many pictures
inside me which wanted to be drawn.
And I realised that the world of
pictures had much more to offer than the real world and that everything
was possible and allowed here. There is no taboo in art. What is
morally unacceptable
in real life
may here be expressed unpunished. So drawing was often a comfort to me
and a valve for feelings and thoughts which are forbidden in real
life.
In the 80s I studied
the art of mentally ill people and the so-called Art Brut.
The artist and collector Jean Dubuffet
used this expression
to describe the art of people outside of the
normal art
world,
people who are mostly autodidactic and who often express their art with
obsession.
Art Brut knows no rules or planning, nor is it bound by techniques or
styles.
Art Brut is free, pure and original. It inspired my approach to the
creative process.
Art is always biographical. Topics arise which
move me and deeply affect me.
One life-long topic is being a twin. This recurs
in the confrontation with duality,
with equality and polarity, with light and
shade, with good and evil.
if I had to be a twin.
My sister and I were always treated as identical twins.
So I felt that I should see
myself in the very different face of my sister – the conflict between
identity and polarity thus develops a special dynamic in my pictures.
And how else could
it be - an ever-present topic is man himself, man with his weaknesses
and his
surprises.
Man in all his variety, man in his beauty and in his ugliness, in
his greatness and in his ridiculousness.
Man who always creates himself again
and who imposes himself as an inexhaustible theme in drawing.
Mostly it's man's weaknesses which appeal to me - and
his imperfection
which looks touching next to his megalomania.
Erotic drawing plays an
important role. Eroticism
is the sister of art.
Both demand devotion, but also allow breaking out of
conventions and rules and
make it possible to live out fantasies which are not
acceptable in real life.
In the
early 90s, I started working on the sculptures. In 1993 alone, I made
more than
ten "Kopffüßler".
Finally colour came into my life, after drawing
in black and white for so many years.
And
the colour came with all its power.
It was
such a joy to see these creatures grow. And again – while working with
the
plaster bandages
– I allowed the creatures to slowly take shape in my hands, so
that they could create themselves.
What I
really love about plaster is that it changes its structure
and temperature
during the work process. I like it most when it becomes warm in
my hands.
Then it feels alive, as if it might breathe life into my sculptures.
Many of
my sculptures first became creatures only because of the eye.
Give a thing an eye
and it seems to be alive.
I found that fascinating and so I made some really
odd creatures.
Finding colour through the
sculptures, I ventured on
painting a few years later.
I took acrylic colours and was overwhelmed by their
power.
I applied the colours quite thickly with a scraper and let
them flow into each other,
which created incredibly beautiful
structures.
The picture "Skyscrapers" is one of the very first pictures I painted.
I am an artist although I have
never tried to make a
living from it.
On the one hand, I think that creative work is much too
precious
to be submitted to the pressure of earning money. On the other hand,
I
had to take responsibility as a single mother for my son, who was born
in 1981
and has now also chosen a career as an artist. Life has led me through
highs and lows.
I have gone unexpected ways - but art has always been my companion.
contact:
michallal(at)web.de
©
copyright Michaela Challal
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