Artemis Herber
Using the Tension: Portrait of an Artist

Tension is everywhere. An artistic eye can see evidence of this like the rest of us can tell if the sun is shining or not. An artist might easily see opposites and/or contrasts in everything. And then put it all to use. Artemis Herber is one such visual artist. Born and trained in Germany, she is half-Greek and half-German. Qualities of both countries are evident in her work.

“Some of my work is abstract, some realistic. I like to express the tension between reality and illusion which demands or involves elements or moments of abstraction.” Words tumble out of her; completely understandable words and thoughts, even if English was not her first language.

“Part of my work is things I have experienced observing phenomena: something close, or in the rear, with all the steps in between. The near is specific, the far away is diffuse, or dissolving. But in the next moment by transforming my observations into paint, I become aware of the illusion of space I create. Colors, light and composition transform into moments of abstraction while I am painting. That is what I like being in that tension.”

This may sound a tad confusing, but if you look at her artwork, it makes perfect sense, and is a brilliant description of what you see there. Her little studio in Little Italy is a sun-filled room, made warm and bright by the profusion of colors. Huge paintings hang on the walls next to smaller ones. Several of her latest projects—sculptural entities made of ordinary cardboard—divide the room into sections, or direct the eye to other experiences.

“Usually I start a new theme/subject or series with a journal of sketches—a visual kind of thinking, for angularity or depth,” she adds. “I want to keep dialogue within the whole process from the beginning of an idea until the end of a painting or a series of paintings. This is the reason why the sketches are different from the paintings. Painting is a surrogate of observations. In every single moment, it has its own reality. I never work with photos for this reason.”

When asked about her paintings, the subjects of which a non-artistic person can readily identify, she responds quickly. “What is painting itself? It’s reflecting. How colors come together in big color fields. I start pretty abstract with one pure color as background. Maybe orange, or yellow, or reddish tones. Sometimes blue.”

“I color the whole canvas with this one color. I need the color for me to become motivated to find the process or dialogue in the painting, and color is just the starting point. It has (or will have or needs to have) a motive or theme I want to work with, and eventually it will appear. The color changes, its not always the same one, time after time. The entire canvas is painted one color or gradation, then I layer on the other. It’s very basic.”

In answer to my question, she responds, “I don’t ever draw on the canvas, only paint with a brush, all free-hand. I like big canvas for the spatial quality, but I have done many smaller ones, too. It all depends. But always, there are many layers. Maybe red, then yellow, then blue, black-purple-blue. Manipulating colors reflects a complicated dialogue.”

There is music playing in the background, and we pause to listen for a moment. The CD is playing the Metamorphosen of Richard Strauss – lush strings, 23 soloists, each with their own part—one of my all-time favorite pieces of music. As the music ends, Artemis says, “This is all dark colors, so when the music goes up (the scale) so the painting had to go up, too. There are dynamic breakthroughs in music to do different brushstrokes.” She stands up to show me the painting to which she refers. And the perspective does indeed go up.

“Listening to music helps me to mix colors in my mind.” The music changes. Now we hear Morgen of Strauss, one of his Four Last Songs. I have to ask what color this might be. She smiles as she says ‘it is a heavenly shade of light blue.” That’s appropriate, it’s morning, after all!

The sculptures which are gaining her new clients and friends, are not new to Artemis. She first began to work with cardboard some twenty years ago while still in Germany. She was painting on paper, which was more spacious perhaps than a fixed canvas. It could be cut or folded, and the illusion of the white of a wall behind shared with the white on the paper in front of it. “It was a simultaneous way to create more space.” While still there, she experimented with forming a montage—layering the corrugated material, including tears, cuts or frayed edges, in various shapes to equal spatial scenery. “Uncertainty was not really a fixed point any more,” she adds. “Pieces or shapes were nailed to the wall for another part of this whole.”

From there she moved on to boxes. Ordinary cardboard boxes. “If you open a box, you expect to find something in there. So I took empty boxes and filled them with my art. Maybe a painting of an industrial site, a sort of metaphor for time. If the box is on the floor and you stand over it, looking down from your own place, it looks like a cityscape when seen from above.” Artemis grins as she remembers. “I painted buildings around the edges, and a little heliport on the bottom. It was very three-dimensional. I loved this mundane material, boxes are everywhere. so it is really ‘found’ art. When one does free-hand painting on it or another object, the material becomes part of it.”

She finds one three-dimensional piece, in which she’s painted over but not obliterated the ‘quality stamp’ and ‘manufacturing data’ on the bottom of the box. These usually ignored marks on the box are readily visible in the background. Again, she smiles. “You see, all is reality. Back is front; positive becomes negative.”

Currently, Artemis is one of two Ohio artists in the prestigious Beyond/In Western New York exhibition at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and several other local galleries in the surrounding area. The call for entries for this show produced 954 responses from artists in the eastern Great Lakes area--nearly half of them from Canada. After winnowing this down to 107 possibles, curators visited each artist in his or her own studio, finally settling on 50 exhibitors for the multiple-venue exhibit. (The other Ohioan is an instructor at KSU.)

Her work Walls of Love is shown in the Albright Knox-Art Gallery winding through three spaces. These tall, free-standing pieces gently guide the visitor through several smaller spaces while serving as a partition in the larger ones. It's a colorful and different type of installation.

“Walls of Love are made from pieces that were 100 by 75 inches,” says the artist. “They are all red on one side (a spicy, warm apple red) with a darker cooler red on the other side. Shadows and light interlock with each other, touching, communicating, forming relationships. Each piece has its own attitude. Some of them emerge straight, some at angles, some curvy, and this makes each one unique. They are all hand-made, bio-morphic, clumsy, artless.”

“A flat sheet of cardboard is dividing space, behind or in front—not cutting off, but bending it. Just use the cuts and nothing else. A cut is a cut. It is using space. Concave becomes on one side convex, on the other open and closed at the same time. Inside/outside. Including/excluding. Each of these can stand by itself, and in that moment it becomes a sculpture.”

These ‘wraps’ can relate to each other – form groups – become an installation, consisting of many. She made a total of 70 of them for the Buffalo show, and 40 were used. (The show continues through Sunday October 20.) “I hope to show Walls of Love at another gallery or museum.”

To continue with her concept of opposites, she adds, “We live in a poisonous atmosphere. So we have had to develop an immune system to protect us. Artists are or have always been a reflection of the misery of the world. How can we change this? We must develop a positive message, remember our own humanity.”

Never one to stand still, Artemis now has a new concept—Curtains. But these curtains are also made of opaque cardboard. Painted and scored (cut) and shaped, the one on display positively flows. Yet it is rigid. She explains, “A window is a piece of a house, an architectural element or part of a wall. A house without windows or if they’re closed with curtains there is an inner world and an outer world. You just prepare to separate yourself from the other world, not let anyone into your inner world. It can be changed, or removed. There are many such options of life. A house without walls, or walls without windows.”

Artemis Herber’s studio is at 2026 Murray Hill Road in Little Italy. Closed on Mondays, she will open on Saturdays by appointment. Tuesday through Friday, you will find her busily engaged in utilizing the various tensions in her world to good advantage. Her website is http://web.mac.com/artemisherber.

Photo by Thorsten Fleiter

All other photos by Kelly Ferjutz

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATadelphia.net
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