Stefan J Schaffeld
Stefan J Schaffeld is a visual artist holding a BA Fine Art (UCA) and a MA Intercultural Practices (CSM, UAL).
Message
Stefan J. Schaffeld is an independent visual artist, creative researcher, socially engaging practitioner, and professional art therapist. He holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of Creative Arts (UCA) and an MA in Intercultural Practices from Central Saint Martins (CSM, UAL).
Intercultural and dialogical encounters, deep listening, and affective care characterize his practice within a relational intercultural field. He holds space for shared experiences that thrive on empathy and reciprocity and are built on truthfulness, endurance, cooperation, and a sense of community.
Communicating with beings who do not share a common culture or language challenges us to listen more deeply and to find different ways of communicating. Through his art practice, he raises awareness of one's presence and feelings as an aesthetic and transformative experience in a space in between.
Education (art-related)
2024: MA Intercultural Practices CSM (UAL), UK
2022: BA Fine Art, University for the Creative Arts (UCA), UK
2022: Kunsttherapeut IHK (Expressive Art Therapy), Institut Humanistische Kunsttherapie (IHK), Switzerland
Statement
dwelling - affective concentration
My approach to explore and make art relates to methods of concentration and meditation. It is a silent absorption in a process that doesn’t claim to be pretentious or representational. The objects created are not precious though the process and experience are.
My fingers are moving and rotating across a surface. I want to touch - to get close and to become one with the immediate space around me. Paper as my preferred material supports a responsive directness onto which I and my collaborators, the pen or charcoal stick, can experience the ‘touch-ness’. We are taking a walk to explore the surfaces that are offered to us. It is a relational, social process of attuned movements of my body with materials that bring forth interwoven lines and images. It is also a process that requires my attention and a heightened sensitivity to my body movement. A conversation between my moving acts and the material’s responsiveness evolves where I am co-responsible for the walk we take. It is a process of intensity, and through my durational efforts, I become aware of my feelings and the physicality of the materials and my body. The making is often a workout demanding the need for negotiation for a resolution. At times, things stand in the way; something cannot be done as intended or planned. Moments of disruption or failure may lead to frustration or dignity. These are magic encounters of wonder and moments of aesthetic experience and empathic correspondence.
In my practice, I am exploring the dynamic field of vibrating encounters. Through my acting and making, I cross and blur boundaries where things and I join in negotiating the in-between-ness. Here, a potential space opens up when I feel attuned to my environment and its materials. In that space, an exchange of affect and effect may occur, informing my making and works. Making is a constant dialogue with materiality and moments of serendipity. Touching the immediacy of materials and touching the ground that supports me is a visceral and kinaesthetic experience of making sense of the environment in a non-verbal way.
I am throwing myself into the making, the evolving picture as a process of becoming through creation. Throwing myself means to shift my perception and to experience the otherness of myself. I reach out and touch the limits of materials and space.
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