Reviewing Sonia Steidle's art-form

(The following remarks are based on a study done by Dr. Hubert Winkels, published by Brüning + Zischke, Art Gallery, Düsseldorf, 1998.)

Nature and man - a dramatic story of controversy: of love, hate, exploitation and rape. Are we then allowed to indulge in the luxury of an artful handling of the subject? Sonia Steidle meets with the floral world of ours, and we are carried away instantaniously as a result: Are we being talked into poor indulgence? Her art holds enough aesthetic appeal for the viewer to dwell upon: the vigorous stroke of her masterful brush unleashes a torrent of forms, colours and formats - a variety perfectly corresponding with the abundance of the subject matter. Still it may well happen that while you indulge in the powerful beauty developing before your eyes you will be struck by questions. There are those rather bewildering insets. The immediate effect is one of estrangement. Ideographic notations representing the idea of a floral something are apt to disturb the enjoyment we are looking for rather than feeding it. Obviously they are designed to cause alienation. A device to prompt questioning. (This, for instance, may be the moment when the viewer suddenly realizes the paradox of the medium: attempting to deal with the thriving drive of the living and to convey it essence on the two-dimensional limitedness of the canvas or the slat.): The artist, far from being naive, does not shrink back from entering an ageless philosophical argument. Indeed, if we are ready to accept the invitation we enter the playground of western civilization. We remember Plato who first learned to discriminate between actual appearance in space and time and a preceding "original" pattern/idea to it. Thrilled by the discovery of a static pool of "eternal notions", his men were busy to exploit the offer: The world, enacted as a "materialization" of pure ideas, carried God's own trademark. It was only in the aftermatch that they got to learn: It was them who delivered the world to being a detestable output of a bad job. Nothing of a bad job in Sonia Steidle's paintings. Rather than getting into an argument with an amateurish "creator" or - updated - joining the more fashionable artistry of a nihilistic whining about time and deficiency, she offers conciliation: She teaches us - unobtrusively, mind you - that time is not our enemy. But the prerequisite for the uniqueness and immeasurable wealth of every single being - and be it the weeds we needfully fight with herbicide. Watch the tendril struggling for life - far from expressing agony it celibrates the making most of one's hand, a playful trying out, totally reconciled with the things as they are, a joyful thanksgiving to the conditions being. Sonia Steidle knows about the secret of balance. Discreetly approaching the magic of being. There is a touch of mournfulness, but never is it given away to triviality. Melancholy which does not give in to seductive depression. Playfulness at its best: A song of consciousness.



Dr. Bruno Steidle