Tanja Heuchele: Your life without art would be….

Silke Berg: That’s a difficult question, because art means a lot in my life. I think I would probably be a little less happy. But in fact, I can hardly imagine my life without art.

TH: The working title of the exhibition is “Kontingenz und Malerei” (“Contingency and Painting”). What does contingency mean to you in your artistic practice?

SB: It means that in my artistic practice, I always move in a field of many decisions and possibilities. In this field, I make decisions, e.g. based on a colour, form, or idea in order to develop or expand a work from it. I usually work rather spontaneously and during the artistic process, I often react to colour surfaces or forms, which I have already painted. There is usually a rough sketch for the individual pieces. However, the artworks always develop in the process, within the spectrum of many possibilities and decisions.

TH: Which places or situations were a source of inspiration for the exhibited works?

SB: Currently, an important source of inspiration in my work is outdoor equipment, or functional clothing and equipment for “being outside”, so to speak. Many of the exhibited sculptures contain parts that are used for backpacks, tents or skydiving. 

TH: You completed your diploma at the Academy of Visual Arts with Ingo Meller and Michael Riedel in Painting and Painting and Graphics Classes. The works you are showing in the exhibition interact with the space as colourful three-dimensional objects and contrast with the works of the other artists, who remain true to the classical place of painting, the canvas or two-dimensionality. Have you always worked in this form or did you develop it in the course of your work from painting or from another field?

SB: In the first years of my studies I did rather “classical” (two-dimensional) painting and also very large-format drawings. In the course of my studies, however, I felt the need to bring the painting and the abstract forms that I drew and painted at that time into the space and that’s why I started experimenting with canvas. I still see some of my works as paintings, because in most cases they always consist of painted surfaces. But my painting has simply moved into a sculptural field and that’s why the terms swing back and forth for me.

TH: What role does fashion play in your work?

SB: I have worked a lot with “clothing as a work of art”. Fashion itself doesn’t play a very big role in my work, but the relationship between body and artwork does. In addition, the question of how a person can interact with a work of art is something that continues to occupy me a lot artistically.