Quoil | Maike Barteldres

Maike Barteldres

PEBBLES

The first artistic act is to walk along the beach and pick the right pebble...

I believe that stone is not a dead material but animated, though at a very slow pace. When working with a pebble, I have respect for the enormous space of time it took for the rock to form and then to be shaped by the elements.

I am interested in nature and the marks humans have left on it. Visibly man- made. We might not necessarily be able to understand its meaning. But there is still an emotional response. A wall in a woodland, iron railings on a beach, cave paintings.

I add my marks to stones and see what response I get.

I moved to New Zealand 2 years ago. There is a lot of nature here and very few people who have interfered with it. While in the UK there was human evidence everywhere, in NZ nature has the tendency to take over again. In the UK human evidence added a certain interest. In NZ it feels like an intrusion.

I am curious to find out how these differences will express themselves in my work.

There are certainly enough pebbles here for me.

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