Interview
Alexandra de Kempf
Alexandra de Kempf is a Venezuelan-German mixed-media artist living in the Frankfurt am Main metropolitan area since 2002. She is an architect and designer who for the last 13 years has been making art. What started as a self-healing therapy tool became a passion and a life path. While still working as an architect, she occasionally also organizes design, art and creativity workshops in her studio. She believes that creativity is a skill that can be learned and trained, and that it is absolutely independent from artistic talent. Her students in the past have all gained confidence in their creative abilities. She possesses a characteristic passion for creating things.
During her artistic career, she has exhibited many collective exhibitions in Miami, Fl.; Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Austria, Scotland and several cities in Germany, including a couple of solo exhibitions in Berlin and Frankfurt. Her work explores the creative possibilities of a variety of materials both in 2 and 3 dimensions. Whereas in her mixed Media collage and painting, or her mixed media sculptures, her lead motive is the expression of the issues exploring womanhood, love, pain, acceptance, re-invention and adaptation to life stages and circumstances through the use of several techniques. She feels free to create with whatever becomes available and can be repurposed. That is why she collects found objects, from beach and forest walks and incorporates it into her work. Making new from old, and or discarded. Thereof comes her passion for collage and assemblage. She sees herself as some sort of alchemist, sometimes a cook, brewing and concocting ingredients in order to create art that is inspiring, powerful, and soul touching.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I am an architect, a designer, and a city planner. I was born and raised in Venezuela and the USA. I have been living in Germany since 1998. I started with clay sculpture in my early twenties, but making art as a serious endevour only began in 2010, when I started painting, and sculpting again and also experimenting with lots of different media as a way of exploring my creativity, and to work through my emotional baggage. Art became a necessity, a path that I have been passionately following ever since.”
What inspires you?
“My main source of inspiration is nature: the forest and the sea, and their small inhabitants. But I also find inspiration in poetry, music, and other artist's work.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“For many years, my theme was womanhood, pain, love and beauty. I do not think that I am done with it as a theme, since I keep coming back to it . But right now my main theme is adaptation. As an established immigrant, who has no other country to go back to, I have been uprooted and forced to re-root. Having faced many losses and many changes, but also many gains, I started observing the ways which living beings, and that includes us humans, have always used to grow and develop in foreign environments. This is the theme of my upcoming solo exhibition, in spring 2024. I do not make art to shock anyone, I want it to please the eye, and inspire the heart. I use plenty of symbols in my work, and symbols have meanings, but I like people to feel free to attach their own meaning to each of my pieces.”
“Art became a necessity, a path that I have been passionately following ever since.”
How would you describe your work?
“My work is varied, rich, and versatile. My 2D work is mostly very colorful, which I see as a way of defying the grey skies above me during the months in which I carry out most of my work, from October to April, because weather forces us to be more inside, and it also invites us to become more introspective. My 3D work, although less colorful, can be very sensual and expressive, but also calm. As I said before, I like experimenting with many materials, exploring their possibilities. Materials have also messages to convey, because each has unique characteristics. When I make art, I feel like when I am cooking,: mixing ingredients to create something new. Sometimes the recipe is simple, and it needs few ingredients, sometimes it is more complex, and it requires more work, and more time, and more ingredients. But my goal is always to achieve a delicious, beautiful meal that triggers important memories, or touches someone’s heart, or soul.”
Which artists influence you most?
“People say my work reminds them of Frida Kahlo, whose work I like. But I also love the women surrealists like Remedios Varo, or Leonora Carrington. Picasso is another favorite and I am also inspired by Klimt's use of color and the work of many other artists, such as Hanah Höch, Raoul Hausmann and Man Ray. Whether their work has influenced mine, I do not know for certain, but they have definitely inspired me.”
What is your creative process like?
“I usually get my ideas when I take walks in the forest, or when I am about to go to bed, which makes me crazy, because then I cannot go to bed, but instead I need to at least write down some key words somewhere. Once I know what I want to do, I need to structure my space, cleaning it up to make it chaotic again, choosing materials as I go through my thoughts and through the work itself. I play music, that helps me get into the "flow" realm, so well explained by Csikszentmihalyi on his writings about creativity. My work process is very private, it is like playing games with myself and my tools and materials. I usually work on more than one piece at a time. Something dries while I paint or glue another thing, something sets while another one is being drafted. Sometimes a piece stays in a corner for a while, until I go back to it to finish it at last. Sometimes there is no drafting, just creating directly from a thought, from a stone, from a dried mushroom, or a piece of coral or driftwood, or a clump of clay. I never know how a piece will finally look. They just develop.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“In dire contrast to what I see happening right now in the art scene, with contemporary art being used as a commodity, I see art as the ultimate expression of mankind's search for meaning. To me, art is the creation of meaning for myself and for those who enjoy it, or/and are moved in any way by it. I make art to inspire, and to stir people's feelings. Art can be provoking, or denouncing, I think that is also a role to be played by some artists. But art does not need to be insulting, or meaningless, for the sole purpose of scandal or profitability. Unfortunately, I see contemporary art moving towards the latter. Art is being defined by the market as a luxury merchandise, as a capital investment, or as a statement in order to become "fashionable", all this according to the "opinion" of a few, who consider themselves "chosen" to tell the rest of the world what work is how much worth. Art then ceases to exist as a personal expression of meaning that can resonate with others, to becomes an object with a measurable exchange value.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“Yes. I have participated in collective exhibitions in the following places: Miami & Pompano Beach, Fl. US; Buenos Aires, Neuquén y Ushuaia (Argentina), Oaxaca (Mexico),Edinburgh, Scotland, several cities in Spain, such as Madrid, Santander, and Barcelona, Klagenfurt, in Austria; and I have had solo and collective exhibitions in several German cities such as Berlin, Idstein, Kronberg, Munich and Frankfurt am Main.”
