Wanda Stolle

Wanda Stolle’s works are hybrids of drawings and objects - the large forms seen on the walls behave in a way like oversized sheets of paper, whereas the smaller drawings seem to carry the more sculptural aspects. The works are characterized by their variation of gray tones: from monochrome surfaces, to the exchange between the lines and perspectives; and from soft outlines to thin obscurities and hard cuts. Stolle's geometrical shapes respond to virtuoso swings, rhythms and curves and the contrast of black against white stimulates extremely lively tones in a sensitively tuned grayscale.

The wall objects are made from large wood panels that have been forced and manipulated into their bends, whitewashed on the outside and graphite coated on the inside. They are like movements suspended and captured in their form - like a falling cloth that is seemingly random. The brightness of the external appearances mixed with the darkness of the interior accompanies the audience’s view of the curves and movements that are constantly folding and unfolding. The stark contrast of black against white creates the ambivalence between the front and the back of the artwork. Undeclared and yet full of potential, the objects lean into the viewer; they are both sensual and provocative at the same time.

Wanda Stolle produces the sublime effect in her drawings using a range of hard tools. The circles, squares, angles, tilts, wedges, trapezes, and symmetries almost mimic the provoked materiality of the surfaces. The actions such as hatching, scorching and scraping open up the surfaces, and in doing so they expose either pure or intense colours due to the multi-layered unique painting materials (shellac, ink etc.). The ending result appears as if the paper is in segments, which contradicts the traditional graphic principles.

The large, space-filling paper sculptures’ "granulation", on the other hand, produces, by the soft and almost invisible movements, an airy tissue that flickers in the light. Stolle’s work does not offer concrete views or image connections it creates new artifacts. Irrespective of space and time they do not dissolve like pictures, suggesting no binding reference planes, but dominantly assert their existence as art objects.