INTERVIEW: FROM ONE CLOUD TO ANOTHER
Interview by Diyuan Art Gallery in JiaXing, Zhejiang, with Astrid Krehan about healing and how to use art to nourish herself.
Why do you use photography as a medium to create?
Nature and adventure are my passions and source of inspiration in my abstract art photography, where I recreate what I visualise. The camera is a wonderful brush to paint the images that I visualise, inspired by patterns in the street or nature. With the technologies I am using, like moving the cameras while shooting, the camera becomes an eye that reveals patterns and colours that are not visible to the human eye. It enables me to reveal beauty that we otherwise would never see. The camera is my magic tool to create my work.
Please describe yourself in ten words
I am a person that requires art or in my case photography, to deal with challenges in life. It is therapy to me. For example, when we got stuck last year in Taiwan, I had difficulties to deal with the fear and uncertainty, so my camera became my self-healing therapy that enabled me to handle the situation. I went out photographing every day. Without any concept or plan, the camera led me to the objects and it created the images. I dove into my own world that let me forget reality and the world around me.
Through your work, what do you want to say to the audience?
When moving to China my eyes were suddenly drawn to pattern and structures that were unique to me, they were an expression of cultural beauty in a way that I haven’t experienced before. I was fascinated by them as I am still now fascinated by the life in China. I started to photograph those and over time I incorporated various techniques into the shooting process which helped me not only to capture those patterns but also expressing the feelings and emotions that they are triggering in me and are expressed in my series China’s Modern Pulse and China in Colour.
In my series Entropy that was created during COVID-19, I not only express my and the world’s emotions at that time through the patterns in the images, but I also would like to give hope through the colours that complement the pattern and structures.
While in series Silent Message I would like to create awareness not only to the beauty of nature but also to the silent message nature sends us, that we really need to learn to listen to since it is the source of our life.
How do you interpret the title “From one cloud to another”?
The title is a beautiful way of describing the approach of two artistic clouds from the far distance, coming from culturally very different environments, finally colliding, to visualize the process of self-healing through abstract artistic expressions. Two worlds geographically far apart but with a similar mindset.
Share your pictures or your favourite samples, and tell us the story behind it.
One of my latest images on my phone is from my series HOLLOW that is taken in the bamboo forest in Moghanshan this year. Bamboo and its forests have always been a source of attraction to me. This attraction grew even more when I learned about its symbolism in Chinese culture, representing the character of moral integrity, resistance, modesty, and loyalty. It also stands for loneliness and elegance. It triggered in me the desire to visualise the words about bamboo by Tang female poet Xue Tao “Lush and hardy to show rare moral courage, hollow inside to maintain humility”
Astrid Krehan, HOLLOW II, 2021
What do you want to say to the young generation who works in art?
This is a very simple advice yet so important and sometimes hard to stick to.
“Follow your feelings and emotions, don’t let anyone distract you or drag you away from your vision and path”
