“Creating means pure happiness to me…”
Paul Zimmerman in conversation with Helga Palasser
Paul Zimmerman: Nature and its materials play significant part in your work. Why are they important?
Helga Palasser: The forms and shapes we can find in nature are most inspiring for my work. The smell, the surfaces, the sounds, the light and all the colours are living and changing all the times and are a vital input for us artists. With our senses we perceive nature in all facets, so ideas and visions arise. I am trying to transform the real picture using my personal art language. So my artworks may be called translations.
To use natural materials as a medium like clay, wood or stones means to get directly connected to nature.
PZ: What is the most challenging aspect of your work?
HP: The most challenging aspect of my work is to find and invent shapes that match my visions.
PZ: What is your artistic process? How do you create your pieces?
HP: Mostly I start with drawing before going on to sculpting or modeling.
PZ: Do you have any particular goal in mind when your start a new project?
HP: This depends on the project, sometimes it is good only to play – to work without plan.
PZ: Have your practice changed over time?
HP: It is changing all the time.
PZ: How would you describe yourself as an artist?
HP: Researcher in the realm of third spaces and shadows.
PZ: What is art for you?
HP: Art is food for our souls. Creating means pure happiness to me.
PZ: Which artists are you most influenced by?
HP: One artist I admire most is Raphael, one of the most talented artists of the Italian Renaissance. Other artists I love are Jackson Pollock and Auguste Rodin.
PZ: What are you working on now?
HP: My work in progress are so called Shadow-Boxes, I am trying to connect painting and sculpting in order to increase the three-dimensional space.
PZ: How does the pandemic influence your work and sensibility?
HP: Everything is now more fragile than ever. This situation makes me more awake and our senses are in alert, I think. As an artist I try to react and so I am searching for answers. The pandamic has definitely an influence on my work when looking at my Shadow-Boxes, the constraints make our world smaller and I am trying to make the small world larger.