Artist Statement
Wind Sculptures (SG) V explores the notion of harnessing the wind, and freezing it in a moment of time. Painted in a Dutch wax textile pattern, the work manifests as a large three-dimensional piece of fabric that appears to be blowing in reaction to the natural elements of the surrounding environment.
The fabric itself is a metaphor for the movement of people, trade routes and global relationships. Batik fabric originated in Indonesia, and Dutch colonizers used the technique to mass-produce fabrics that were sold to Britain’s West African colonies, where they were embraced and are now considered in the world’s eyes as authentic African products.
The piece reminds us that our contemporary cultures, like the batik fabric, are the result of centuries of cross-cultural exchange. By referencing both this hybrid fabric and the powerful yet invisible nature of wind, the work suggests that identity is always a richly layered and dynamic set of relationships, while evoking a sense of freedom and possibility.
About the Artist
Stefan Thelen’s anti-superhero identity Super A is a Dutch artist who uses traditional painting technique and a knack for design to create compositions that manipulate familiar iconography into mind-bending and inquisitive pieces. His alter-ego, Super A is the filter with which the life and observations of Stefan Thelen are distilled down and turn into inspiration. All of his work evolves out of personal experiences or thoughts that grow into concepts which tightrope between fiction and nonfiction. Super A is a mystery that leans on the art doing most of the talking for Stefan Thelen, taking the viewer into a wonderland walking down a yellow brick road in which Thelen’s figurative and modern surrealist compositions are providing playful puzzles to decipher.
