Maria Pechstein

I am a human being who was born on the wrong planet. The cruelties on earth evoke in me the desire to act. Art makes me rise to other spheres that give me hope again, without my fantasy places and the belief in touching and changing through art, I would have been lost on this planet long ago.

Q&A

Artist Statement

Art is an important form of expression for me. In artistic works I usually take up social and environmental issues to work on and visualize them. Social ills and injustices evoked already in childhood the strong feeling in me to have to act. Art offers me the possibility, in my own way, to turn this desire into reality. I want to encourage people to question old, burnt-in thought patterns with which we are socialized as a society, and to establish new ways of looking at things.Glass as a material plays an important role in my work. The execution in glass requires precision and perseverance. The material is often associated with shiny and shining surfaces. Many sculptures in glass have fire-polished or mechanically polished surfaces. This appearance has its charms, but I am mainly interested in the combination of structures and matte surfaces, which, in combination with different light sources, achieve varied and expressive effects. Occasionally I set accents by polished surfaces. I deal with both figurative and abstract forms of expression. Along the theme of a work cycle, I work out a respective formal language that is able to transport content and intention.Working with glass usually means a high energy expenditure, so I started to take a closer look at the creation of digital works. In particular, I am fascinated by the variety of implementation possibilities and especially the work with individual frames that can be played as an animation at the end. So it is now possible for me to present my chosen topics in a wide spectrum to the viewers.

What craft do you work with?

For a long time I worked with glass. It was my main focus, but now I also work a lot with clay and digital media.I have been working with glass for 7 yearsMy favorite technique with glass is the casting glass technique. When working with digital media, I find animations particularly exciting.

What inspires you to work with this craft?

What fascinates me most about working with glass is the transparency of the material and working with various light sources.What I like about working with clay is the feeling of being able to shape the material with my hands.

How do you start your creative process?

When I start working, I usually have social or environmental issues that I want to express through my work. Initial ideas for possible implementations usually happen during my walks, so I get the creative thoughts rolling. Designing on paper or on the tablet is a lot of fun for me. after the design, I usually talk to my husband or my father and it often happens that my designs go through another change. When I decide to turn my work into glass comes the difficult part, because I always have to make sure that it is realizable.

Your workspace?

I worked with my father in his workshop for 7 years. We combine wood and glass together. When I left my hometown after 7 years, I had to start working from home, so it was no longer possible for me to work with glass and so I started to work with clay and digital media. But it is also a time in which I think a lot about energy and how I can deal with it well, because the technique with which I make my glass sculptures have a high energy consumption. I couldn’t work without my tablet and tablet pen.

Are there new techniques you would like to try?

I’ve always really wanted to work with fabric, but haven’t really tried it yet.

Sharing your craft and experience?

With the glass casting technique it is important to have a lot of patience in order to achieve optimal results, but once you have found out how to work well with this technique, the results are a great pleasure every time. My dream is to be able to present my work to a wide audience and at some point to be able to live only from art.