Schneider Museum of Art
Goereme I - V by Christel
Dillbohner, 2001
Intimate Revelations
International Women's Exhibition (continued: Page 3)
Christel Dillbohner
Born and educated in Germany, Christel Dillbohner is in fact a citizen of the world. Widely traveled throughout Europe, the United States and many countries in Asia, she lives in Berkeley, California where she maintains her studio and resides for relatively short periods of time – in between her travels. She is a passionate reader and researches cultural patterns and ideas whenever and where ever she lands. Her work often includes found objects gathered on her journeys.
For me, art has always been visual research and dissemination investigating events and concepts through uncommon viewpoints and tools, then transforming ideas into “visual catalysts.” This offers me a perpetual challenge, the basis for my creative process and the means for a non-verbal communication with others. Over the years I’ve expanded my material language: I’ve worked with clay, and sculpted paper, spent days in the darkroom, explored the use of wax, added oils and pigment to my palette and collected a multitude of natural materials and cultural debris for my assemblages. The results of my visual studies, which often involve travel, are manifested in my paintings, collages, assemblages and sculpture. I present these in intimate or large-scale site-specific installations, often accompanied by talks and workshops. The large free hanging paintings/assemblages included in this exhibition may communicate to the viewer my pleasure of viewing things and ideas from a different angle. They may also speak to him or her of discovering, collecting and securing evidence of the never ending search for new insights into and about the world and oneself.
Her work resonates with experiences, yet is in no way nostalgic. It carries and communicates, whether on an intimate or monumental scale, a somber thoughtfulness deeply connected to life and death on this planet. Usually rendered in earth-colored tonalities, lit as if from within by rays emanating through layers of material such as handmade paper or cloth treated with wax or tar, these pieces emanate feelings of fragility and vulnerability visible and invisible. Assemblage boxes allude to intimate secrets, hiding clues, while the larger more expansive flat or hanging works create a field incorporating found or handmade objects which act as markers of memory. Referring to such works, the artist writes:
I have been interested in the layers and sedimentation of history for sometime now. In my works, I plot the co-ordinates of events, space and time, thus making connections between the past and the present. I also study closely the traces that specific events leave behind- on mind, soul and body. I feel very close to the writings of W.G. Sebald who was born in 1944 and grew up in post-war Germany and whose writings are steeped in my own cultural heritage. He expresses the human desire to explore and to discover, to understand and to grow. His words describe the close connection between art and nature and give me an understanding of melancholy and the human condition.
More Intimate Revelations:
Pg. 1: Yolanda Andrade Pg. 2: Belkis Ayon
Pg. 4: Mari Omori/Maritta Tapanainen
Pg. 5: Kyung Sun Cho/Theodora Varney Jones/Echiko Ohira
Pg. 6: Sosa Joseph Pg. 7: Younhee Paik
