Drawing into the air with Stella Geppert
Eagerly we sit in the Ephra Floor, because today the artist Stella Geppert is visiting us. When she arrives, we immediately sense the great calm and openness that Stella radiates. To get to know her and us even better, we start with a welcome game. Standing in a large circle, we all say our names one after the other and think of a special movement to go with it. Then Stella takes her place in the centre of the stage and is ready for our questions.
The first thing we want to know from Stella is how she came to make art. She answers that before she even really knew what art was, she was already drawing brownies on paper for all her friends and relatives. Then she tells us that she was in love when she was about our age. But instead of writing a love letter, Stella started moulding little figures out of clay to express her feelings. She also enjoyed art the most at school. She didn't like the other subjects as much. But when she told her parents that she wanted to become an artist, they were against it, saying that you can't earn money with art.
Stella’s first exhibition was entitled “Innocence” and took place at her art college (where she ended up studying after all, even though her parents didn't really want her to). For the exhibition, Stella dressed up as a nun and also showed very large eggs that had cheerful mouths and looked a bit like breasts. At the time, she particularly liked the fact that many people laughed when they saw her work, she says.
We ask Stella what she does when she's not working as an artist. She tells us that she enjoys travelling with marine biologists to observe whales and dolphins. She would also like to learn to dive. Many of us can understand this desire. However, Stella’s favourite thing to do is dance and sing and she explains that this is actually part of her job. Stella is a performance artist. This means that she performs different actions in front of an audience or a camera to create works of art. And she often dances and sings to do this.
Stella tells us that performance art is a way for her to get to know herself and others better. She says that art enables her to better understand other people's movements, gestures and language. To do this, she asks herself: How do we sit? How do we move? How is the body in space? How do we laugh? How do we cry? How do we talk to each other?
After the interview, we are already itching to try out a performance ourselves. But first we watch a few videos of Stella to get a better understanding of her art. Afterwards, we walk to the large, wide area of paper that is already laid out on the floor. We stand in a circle around it and Stella shows us an exercise in which we have to roll our tongue in our mouth as if we wanted to touch the tip of our nose with it. The exercise tickles the roof of our mouths and some of us have to start yawning. Those who yawn are allowed to lie down on the white surface. One by one, we all lie down and Stella distributes pieces of cabbage and large white leaves, which she places on top of us so that they cover our upper bodies and bellies. Now Stella tells us to try to concentrate fully on our breathing and to use the pieces of charcoal to draw on the areas of the paper where we can feel the breath in our bodies. Stella encourages us to breathe out loud and listen to the sounds of the charcoal on the paper. After a while, we put the papers aside and look at our drawings and those of the others. We see how different the pictures are that we have painted with our breath. Afterwards, we have some time to paint the outlines of our bodies on the large white surface.
At the end, we come back together in the big circle. Each of us describes a movement that we made while drawing and breathing and we all repeat it together. We talk about the day with Stella Geppert. One of us says: "We drew in the air" and someone else adds: "Art needs a lot of space" - and that actually sums it up quite well.
