ARTROM Gallery TOP TEN International Art Competition / Surrealism 2008 / All Media, An ARTROM Gallery Winners' Exhibition, Winner Number Nine, Karin Kuhlman

9th PLACE WINNER :: Karin Kuhlman / Germany

Artist Statement ::

It is not my aim to create realistic reflections of my surrounding environment. I would rather like to show the things between and behind and to make my thoughts and perceptions visible. My works are frequently very strong related with personal and social conditions, experiences and emotions. My subjects are human relations as well as personal and social conditions.

Since beginning to use the computer as a personal artistic tool in 1996 I tended more and more towards abstraction. Especially the game with geometric forms and the research into the visual and emotional possibilities of several graphic methods are of great interest for me, e. g. to work with fractals which are always the visualized solution of a complex mathematical problem - but viewed in isolation of mathematical questions and contents they are graphic patterns as a snapshot of the infinity.

One of the great advantages of working with the computer is to be provided with an inexhaustible, creative potential and I love to get inspired by using some forms and filters and to find my subjects in a playful way. That means - like the surrealists and some abstractionists in the early nineteenhundreds - I prefer to utilize Automatism for my creative processes in order to release my inner pictures.

Max Ernst, one of the leading surrealists said : "...the lack of a picture on an empty sheet can only be forced by developing a mechanism of poetical inspiration." An impressing series of Frottages (since 1925) witnesses the characteristic interaction between technique and inspiration. And the great expressionist Paul Klee who also preferred the techniques of Automatism said: "Art doesn't reflect the visible. ART MAKES VISIBLE." Working in this tradition I usually generate a series of inspiring and associative organic shapes on transpararent layers and rework and combine it to form subtle arrangements of glowing transparent areas of colours, including the light behind it.

Drawing by algorithm depends widely on coincidence. However the generating and selecting of dynamic organic forms, their editing and colouring depends on the abilities and the imagination of the artist. Mathematical art is - although it seems to be a contradiction in terms - a very intuitive and individual kind of work.

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