German collage artist Anina von Winterfeld, who recently exhibited her works at the Bait Muzna Gallery, Oman, alongside Omani painter Mousa Omar and sculptor Ayoub Al Balushi, appears to have lost herself in the vitality of her host country’s culture and environment.
She has reproduced bright, vivid snatches of her impressions in her collage creations by assembling layers of various media and physical materials.
Anina derives great enjoyment from working with the collage format. “I feel there is much more variety to expression when I incorporate other materials into my artwork,” she says.
Examples of her work are Take a break 1!, which includes an English coffee recipe from a newspaper along with a handwritten recipe in German; two works, Window and Wall and Door and Wall, reflect her fascination with doors and walls, incorporate mosquito-net, gold spray-painted corrugated cardboard, bark and springy, lime green packing material. It emerges as a playful, three-dimensional work, with a bold, flamboyant use of media and materials.
Having been a resident of Oman for five years, Anina revels in both the aesthetic inspirations provided by the country’s immense cultural wealth as well as its physical environment.
Anina finds inspiration in both the dramatic as well as the quotidian details of life. As she says: “I train my eyes to notice the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary: the texture of sand dunes or the shadows that arrive as the sun is setting.”
In such a case, Anina cannot but be sensitive to Oman’s various hues, as is evident in the reverent tones she uses to describe the green seedlings that spring up in crevices of mountains after a shower or in recognising the cultural and economic role that gold plays in Oman.
“The frequent use of gold in my work is reflective of the significance of gold in Oman, whether it is in patterns embellishing the surface of buildings or women wearing it,” she says. “I use both silver and gold in my work, although gold fits better into the Omani cultural ethos.”
Her works also capture an architectural energy unique to Oman. For instance, in In the Mountains series, smoky black mountains tower above clusters of gleaming white buildings and mosques.
“The architecture in Oman is quite different from that in Germany. I walk around in the Old Muscat area, taking photos and observing it all. I like seeing the shapes of the mosques, their domes and the intricacy of patterns on them,” she says.
Anina is also taken with Omani doors. “I love the doors’ surface texture, laden with patterns and designs,” she says. As she mentions in her website, www.aninacollage.com, she considers it a challenge to “imitate” such textures in her works.
She also recognises the historical and cultural heritage encoded in the doors. “There are so many stories behind them,” she says. “I also like to look at old walls. They contain layers of advertisements, graffiti, traces of old paint and writing,” she says. “They are stories in themselves.”
Apart from the obvious physical strata, Anina’s works are also layered with Arabic numerals, alphabet and newsprint. “I am neither literate nor conversant in Arabic,” she says. “However, I find the physical shape of the Arabic language fascinating; I sometimes place the letters upside down for the sheer playfulness of it.”
However, while selecting newsprint, she monitors her selection as she is aware that an Arabic-literate viewer may expect or assume a connection between her chosen newspaper selection and the work itself. “I would not like to offend anyone,” she says.
Anina is inclined to work on one particular theme at a time, which may subsequently result in an entire series. “I try out as many techniques and innovations as I can and try to reinvent as much as possible,” she says. Furthermore, with the time-consuming layering techniques required for a collage, she works on 4 or 5 pieces at a time.
Her works on doors include a three-part series on door segments in plaster of Paris. Its various hues of green and attention to artistic detail are fascinating.
Experimenting and taking risks are oxygen for Anina when it comes to her work. “I never plan what to do. I am constantly experimenting and trying out different techniques in a bid to expand my vocabulary of art,” she says.
For example, gesso is an acrylic medium used to prepare canvases for acrylic work; she, however, uses it as a medium by scratching the surface away.
She also believes that the collage form easily lends itself to reinvention; it is easier to salvage a collage work and create it anew.
“There are definitely surprises in the end and, sometimes, the effects are not what I expect them to be. However, I have sometimes discovered new techniques. I call them positive accidents and learn from them,” she says.
Anina espouses the spirit of innovation and says that one should be ready to take risks, and explore and create new artistic spaces.
Anina’s future projects include cobbling together elements from Omani naturescapes, such as driftwood washed up on the beach, pebbles and shells, and incorporating them in her work. However, her fascination with doors and walls continues and she still feels there is yet more potential waiting to be unlocked and expressed in her work.
Priyanka Sacheti is an independent writer based in Oman.
