Edition 2022

Meet Our Resident Artists – August 2022

BIRGITTA VOLZ – Germany – Wood printing

www.birgittavolz.de/

@birgittavolz (Instagram)

 

Artist statement and bio

Birgitta Volz, an artist and designer with major international recognition, can be credited with nearly 120 solo exhibitions, more than 230 group exhibitions, and work in 21 different countries. Beginning her career in 1985 as the youngest member of the Association of Professional Artists in Nuremberg, Germany, Birgitta received her BA from Würzburg College and her MA from the University of Modern Arts in Kassel. Between 1996 and 2000, she lectured at art colleges in India, Portugal, and Ghana. Drawn to India, she settled in Auroville in 2005.

Recipient of numerous international awards, fellowships, and artist residencies, Birgitta’s wood prints, bark prints and botanical prints are kept in many public and private collections.

“I work with block prints, which I take directly from the bark of living trees or other plants, as well as from natural stones and also from man made structures. Magic is unfolding, as soon as I do my printing work. My “models” gift me with different archetypes and stories, depending on their cultural environment. It seems as if the trees, stones or our environment in general record the history of their place and of its “clandestine” inhabitants. I try to unveil the inner aspect, the very soul of nature, which has been well known and venerated in most ancient cultures.

I wish to open people through the beauty of nature, which is a continuous theme in my artwork. My aim is to create a consciousness which guides the observer above mere decoration and perhaps some viewers will be able to gain access to the spiritual aspects of nature.“

 

JOANNA POTTLE – US – Painting

www.joannapottle.com

@joannapottle (Instagram)

 

Artist statement and bio

Born in Richmond, Virginia, US.

Joanna Pottle is a visual artist, researcher, educator, and curator. Her studio practice combines abstract mixed media techniques of painting, printmaking, drawing, and installations and her research includes investigations of public art and space, contemporary art, post-colonial and post-soviet studies, collective memory and shame, (re)negotiation of previously untold or unheard narratives, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, cross-cultural understanding, trauma, healing and peace-building, vulnerability, courage, and empathy. She is graduate of James Madison University, holding a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Art History with an Art Education track.

“I am a visual storyteller. Or perhaps more accurately, a facilitator of truth telling.

Creating new narratives that put to rest familiar, desperately held onto lies, representing existing truths, and engaging in alternative archival processes to preserve past pains and joys.

Communicating truths and imagination, many times both simultaneously.

Somewhere between real life in all its mundane glory and unapologetic imagination is where we find our truest reality.

This in between is where I reside.

I pursue the in between with the objective of creating a space for active listening, meaningful connection, and transformative healing.

….Dreaming is a form of planning. Gloria Steinman”

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