ARTIST STATEMENT
Uli’s works arise from an intense sensory perception of nature. Through contemplation, she develops a deep connection with often inconspicuous plant forms – bizarre, fragile or fragmentary objects in a state of transformation, which bear within them traces of time, transience and natural processes.
She finds her inspiration in the arid landscapes of the southern Mediterranean, by the sea and in the Alps. From the diversity of nature, she extracts individual fragments – a ‘pars pro toto’ that can symbolically represent a larger whole. Transformation and metamorphosis form central themes in her work.
Musicality plays an essential role in this: lines, rhythms, as well as tension and release, create dynamic forms and visual ‘sounds’ in her sculptures. In parallel, she produces series of pastels in which she continues to explore perception, movement and the observation of nature through drawing.
Uli begins by working with clay; the final form emerges during the immediate creative process. The works are then cast in bronze and, where appropriate, patinated.
BIOGRAPHY
Uli was born in Baden-Württemberg in Germany and grew up surrounded by art from her earliest childhood – influenced in equal measure by the visual arts and music. Her mother was a sculptor, her father an organist and piano teacher; thus she developed a keen sense of artistic expression in its most diverse forms at an early age.
She furthered her artistic training through private sculpture lessons with Rolf Binder in Duisburg and by studying graphic and textile design at the Werkkunstschule Krefeld under Prof. Gerhard Kadow, graduating with a degree in design in Hanover. She was particularly influenced by the pedagogy of the ‘Bauhaus preparatory course’, which viewed design as a school of perception, thought and experimental research.
Today she lives and works in Provence.