Hannah Kiefmann

I perceive painting as a place of encounter and exploration of the concept of the ‚self’ in relation to painting. I constantly look for this confrontation as to examine what the relationship consists of and what form the communication can take on. It doesn’t only take place in the studio, I want to take the painting into my world, on walks, for example, to face it in a different environment and evoke new ways of connecting to it. As to overstep the border of approaching a surface and open up the space of the painting.

The concept of the self I would formulate in questions such as: how am I integrated into this world, and how do I integrate myself into it? How do I make sense of the reality I created around myself, the outer world? What role does painting play in this? Expectations, beliefs, and judgments built my reality and formed my relationship with the painting.

This reflective monologue describes the essence of my endeavour. I choose this form because it expresses how I interact with my painting:

To start with, there was the pictorial imprinted surface. Consisting of form, texture and color;
Which I perceived with my eyes.
I thought I already knew who you are,

Categorized you in my mind to be able to interact with you.

In my mind, I had this clear vision.
Out of this clarity I tried to create your essence, while meeting you at the place where you come to exist: the canvas.

But there, you have deceived and disappointed me. You couldn't reach my expectations.

You didn’t show yourself to me the way I thought you would. You didn’t answer or speak to me the way I had hoped.
I found myself standing in front of a silent wall;
A surface that repelled me.

What did I even see in you?

Was it the capturing surface?
the promise to be more;
to enter a whole new perspective if I would engage with you?

I was willing to go beneath your surface and enter your space.

At first you tricked me.
You played with my eyes, lured them and let them disappear into all kinds of imaginations, ideas and associations that you suddenly evoked in me.

But then you opened up my mind. My mind of memories loves you. My past loves you.
They love your alluring voice.

I have good plans for what you will look like at the end of our relation.
My intentions are logical, meaningful, and harmonious, focussing on the image of beauty. But whenever we meet, you reject these concepts.

What if I destroy this tender, and slowly building relationship between us? Disappoint you because I can't give you what you truly deserve.
Or force my will on you too much.

You speak back to me and make me painfully aware that my body is a stranger to me, like you are. My body sees you differently.
My sensory perception and my physical interaction with you is different.

I want you to be a fundamental part of this bodily interaction, this sensual communication.

My movement, every gesture creates you.
You and my body are going through the process together,
Interweave, we meet in the space of becoming.
That is, in front of me, with me, in my studio and outside, in the world.

You ask for impulses; ideas, action and new directions,