Art Expo New York 2019 - Impressions

New York, New York

Elke Schmölzer Stonefaces presented at Art Expo New York 2019 with the gallery Steiner booth 281

About the Stonefaces..

From childhood on I have loved spending time along the banks of mountain streams and collecting stones – while looking at the stones they suddenly seemed to gaze back at me and I began seeing faces in them. That inspired me to put those stonefaces on paper and canvas and over the years they developed a life of their own, being an indicator of emotions and feelings, expressive and profound.

The stonefaces that are presented here in NYC, for example, relate to the terrible event of 9/11 – I painted them in 2011 for an exhibition that took place in NYC in 2012. As during the painting process 9/11 was always on my mind the faces came out looking extremely shocked and horrified that I could not stand leaving them like that, so I had to brush over them again with soft and smooth strokes of a light color. This was a very intense experience and when I had the feeling that the faces began to soften up, it touched me so that I even began to cry. The same strong feelings came up when I visited the Ground Zero Memorial. That is the reason why I have chosen these paintings for the present exhibition.