De rerum Keiyona: reflections on, and with, Keiyona C. Stumpf (Emanuela Nobile), in: exhibition catalogue `GRIP OF NATURE´, Galleria Antonella Villanova 2024
Keiyona C. Stumpf’s work tells an ancient yet modern, individual yet pantheistic story of nature as a harmonious, wondrous cosmological system that is open to an exceptionally intense experiential dimension and connects us with the more intimate, hidden part of ourselves and of existence. As she asserts, “Nature isn’t just the foundation of our existence – we are ‘nature,’ and we bear all of its principles within us.” Going beyond the anthropocentric view that has characterized most of our recent history, Keiyona, through her works, brings attention back to the correspondence between man and nature, imagining the construction of a system of shared and sometimes interchangeable symbols. Blending lyricism, wonder and mimesis, her work draws heavily from the phenomics of botany and anatomy to offer a sort of imaginary encyclopedic narration, a chimeric litany inspired by existence, i.e., by everything that is naturally born, grows, lives, proliferates and, ineluctably, mutates, until it decays. Insinuating herself into the weave of what lies below the surface, not visible to the naked eye, Keiyona brings to light – and to the observer’s gaze – subterranean, subcutaneous universes, uncommon, unfamiliar images that impose themselves on our perception like mirabilia, as seductive as they are unsettling. The dualistic ambiguity of her works fits with what seems to be her dual intention: to “reveal” in the more common, secular sense, i.e., to unveil, to disclose, to show, to make known something that was unknown before, and to “reveal” in the grander, more solemn sense, often used with reference to divinities and the way they “reveal themselves” through apparitions, miracles, gestures that inspire reverence and, sometimes, fear and submission. In any case, the goal is the pursuit, the exaltation and the revelation of truth (from the Greek: ἀλήθεια/aletheia), or eliminating the obscure (a–λέθος/léthos) to bring out of the shadows what is usually hidden or that we instinctively prefer to keep concealed from our eyes. In this sense, nature offers itself to the artist as the most and most suggestive territory: an infallible, logical, systemic complex, a dynamic (natura naturans) and static (natura naturata) generative force, perfect in its becoming as well as in its completed form. Technically an exact science, humanly a mystery. Keiyona’s fascination with the naturalistic universe springs from this mixture of contrasting perceptions that nature elicits, producing strong, destabilizing emotions in the human soul: attraction on one hand, anxiety on the other. In a certain sense, the dynamic ideally hearkens back to Burke’s concept of the “sublime,” the feeling triggered by something so immeasurably large or so unfathomably beautiful as to seem menacing, that delightful horror that simultaneously fascinates and terrifies us.
“In fact, I wanted to paint the scream, more than the horror. […] I like, you might say, the glitter and the color that comes from the mouth, and I’ve always hoped in a sense to be able to paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset.”
For Francis Bacon, painting is a means by which to depict the acoustic expression of pain, turning it into a moistly blatant image so obscene (in the etymological sense of “ob scena”, offstage or out of the picture) as to violate the physical and psychological privacy of the subject depicted. For Keiyona, polychromatic ceramics is the material best suited to offering glimpses of organographic inner landscapes that usually remain hidden, making them erupt into vivid, vibrant, dynamic sculptural forms. Offered up to the viewer’s voyeurism like magnified visceral visions, the deterministic truths of the natural sciences are translated into spontaneous, fantastical reinterpretations – glittering simulacra, intentionally imperfect, like baroque machines, imbued with a secular, anarchic sacredness that inspire intellectual exploration, rather than scientific, producing wonder as well.
This is how Keiyona shows us her personal creative cosmos, animated by a desire for reality and by a constant yearning for balance (polycentric, quirky, anti-heroic) and beauty (seductive, imperfect, transitory), and congenitally dedicated to making visible the invisible.
ENM: Your work is clearly tied to and influenced by the natural world, in the global, holistic sense – in fact, your works contain references to both the botanical and anatomical universes. What led you to explore these themes in particular?
KCS: I’ve always been fascinated by the natural world, and I spent a lot of time as a child surrounded by nature, which is a great source of inspiration for me. I’m captivated by all naturalistic elements, but in particular I’m drawn to forms that have an intrinsic, endemic dynamism that makes them change their conformation and transform themselves, passing from one status quo to another. The principles of nature pertain to us – everything connects us to nature, and we are all nature. Personally, over the years I’ve realized that I found inspiration in the natural world outside - outside myself -, but at the same time I realized how much I belong to this world, and that’s what leads me to express myself today through my personal perception of what’s all around me.
ENM: What aspects of your background forged your creative principles and your poetics, your artistic practice?
KCS: I’ve always had a creative streak since I was a child – I spent a lot of time drawing with my sister, and we had fun together constructing enormous installations with our toys. Creating my own personal universe through artistic activities was the most natural way for me to express myself; it was the language I was able to communicate with in the easiest, most spontaneous way, and I was lucky that my parents nurtured that. I’ve observed nature a lot, but I’ve also read numerous books and watched a lot of films on the subject. I’ve always been fascinated with natural forms and their beauty, but at the same time I’ve also been drawn to the strangeness of some of these forms, because in a way they scared me, they made me feel frightened.
ENM: I find this dualistic aspect of your work really interesting, the fact that it can simultaneously stimulate opposing feelings in observers – they’re alluring on one hand and unsettling on the other. Some of the forms, because they’re not immediately recognizable as something known or reassuring, seem indecipherable and obscure. I think this “dark” side of your work intensifies the viewer’s engagement, and that’s an aspect that makes your works even more alluring, because it sparks a desire to look at them from up-close, and even to touch them. This mix of sensations brings to mind a concept that’s been much debated in art history, particularly during the 18th century but later as well – the idea of the Sublime, the encounter between the human being, the artist, and a higher force: Nature and its uncontrollable power, which can elicit powerful and contrasting feelings, like wonder and at the same time anxiety.
KCS: That’s true: the idea is to confront the viewer with something new and unknown. The things we don’t know are the ones that scare us the most. The scale of the works in some cases also contributes to generating a sense of uncertainty in the viewer, who might feel overwhelmed by them. I think that sometimes it’s interesting to be suspended in a state of not-knowing. Not knowing and not having clear answers is a condition that can easily open up to new experiences. In my work I don’t try to give clear answers – actually I’m always looking for forms that can’t give a precise answer, so everything stays completely open. You know, we are used to always offering automatic responses to everything in the sphere of things we know, and sometimes this means we don’t see reality for what it really is anymore – our minds are pre-programmed, full of preconceptions.
ENM: There’s a clear idea of opening ourselves up to the possibility of different answers in your work. Each piece is based on the assembling of parts that come together to form a single image, which at first glance is perceived as a harmonious, symmetrical whole. Only subsequently, looking more carefully and more closely, do we realize that each part is different, and there aren’t really mirroring halves or a precise symmetry – what’s immortalized is the aspiration of a form that’s still in a state of chaos to an ideal order.
KCS: Yes, to some degree I seek symmetry and perfection, but it’s clear that perfection doesn’t exist in this world, so I try for balance. I think that the joy in life lies in imperfection. For me it’s more interesting to have a vital symmetry, a vibrant pattern, rather than a perfect but rigid form. So yes, I always work with different parts, making molds that I then fuse together during firing – this technique really suits my creative process, which is sort of evolutive.
ENM: In fact, in your works there’s a sense of constant tension, an evolutive force within the works themselves that animates them and makes them seem to be in constant mutation – they look different and changed depending on the point of view they’re observed from. This idea of dynamism is certainly further accentuated by your use of color and finishes. Can you tell me something about the role of color in your work?
KCS: When I started out, I used to use red tones a lot, because I felt they expressed an immediate reference to the body, to what’s under our skin – blood, viscera etc. I remember when I was still at the Academy, I was really fascinated by a book I’d found in the library: it was a book about La Specola [the Florence Museum of Natural Sciences, known as the Museo della Specola, which conserves wax anatomical sculptures by Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, Ed.] and an image that particularly struck me was a wax sculpture of a very beautiful blonde woman lying supine with her abdomen completely open, so with her internal organs totally on view – my perception read that vision as a sort of blossoming flower. The thing that intrigues me most is this connection between what we have under our skin and what we’re scared to look at. Later I thought that it was maybe too obvious to use red to refer to the anatomical dimension, and I started using only white. At the time, I wasn’t working with ceramics yet, but with other materials – fabric, paper, wax, etc. I started using color again when I discovered ceramics, which is an extraordinary material because it lets you experiment so much with color, with the effects of light, with depth and three-dimensionality.
ENM: What characteristic of ceramics interests you most?
KCS: I think first of all it’s the long tradition this material has – it’s maybe the oldest material used by humans to create useful objects, forms and representations. You can do pretty much everything with ceramics, it’s such a versatile, transformable material. As I said, early on in my career I used multiple materials, but the aim was always to achieve “beauty” – it’s a goal that means a lot to me, but the beauty I’m after isn’t an easy beauty, but rather an idea of beauty that, as we were saying, stimulates more uncomfortable feelings too, like the sensation of being in the presence of something animate that’s sometimes almost repulsive. In that sense, the shininess of the glazed surfaces of ceramics can suggest on the one hand something precious and dazzling, like a jewel, but at the same time also something that seems wet, slimy, alive.
ENM: What you just said about ceramics brings to mind something the Italian artist Enzo Cucchi said to me during an interview – that “ceramics is one of the most honest materials – it’s been through history, it’s withstood a lot of things, it’s incapable of lying”.
The concept of honesty somehow corresponds to the concept of truth that I find in your work, for example with regard to the effect the glazing creates of a living, moist material.
Could that suggest a hidden reference to the sensual, or even erotic aspect that can perhaps be glimpsed in some of your works?
KCS: This association with erotic forms that you see in my work makes sense, in that it’s connected to natural principles of evolution and the idea of creating and giving life to ever-new things. It’s a sort of edifying and sensual sensation of the form, which isn’t intended to be provocative or obscene. I never think much about what I’m doing as I’m doing it; if anything, I might think about it afterwards. Working with naturalistic forms and the imagery connected to them often leads me to create images that recall anatomical parts, like sexual or reproductive organs, and when I notice that and I like it, I continue. But if I feel that the form is pushing in a too-specific direction, then I change directions. I don’t want my work to go in an obvious or emulative direction by looking excessively like something specific.
ENM: I find some very diverse inputs in your work, the beginnings of different stories, and the concomitance of these visual stimuli makes the viewer want to go deeper. On that point, I can also see in a few of your works a reference to Jugendstil, that is to German-style Art Nouveau, and I was wondering if and how the history of the art and tradition of ceramics, as well as German culture, influenced your research and your aesthetics.
KCS: Yes, sure, I love Art Nouveau, particularly because it’s characterized by the movement and dynamism of natural forms. In general I’ve looked at various historical eras and different periods of art history, and I’ve also read books about discoveries made in the past of new forms existing in nature, like for example new species of sea creatures, and artists at the time had to deal with a new idea of beauty and once again started asking themselves, what is beauty? And trying to redefine it, trying to establish which form was the most beautiful or what makes a form beautiful. And I grew up in Bavaria where there are a lot of castles and Baroque churches, and this environment certainly influenced me. I remember when I was younger, visiting one of those churches, I did an experiment: I slightly closed my eyes so I couldn’t clearly see the details of the sculptures and the architectural motifs, so what I perceived was just the growing, overwhelming expressive power of Baroque forms.
ENM: The language of the Baroque period was effectively intended to impress the viewer and convey a sense of wonder, or even fear, and if you think about it, in that period churches didn’t have artificial lighting but were lit only by candlelight, and the flickering of the flames could have created a dynamic play of light and shadow so sculptures and architectural details were perceived as animate things. So in a certain way your work also brings to mind the experience or the expedients of Baroque artistic expression.
KCS: Yes, and I think it’s natural for artists to take in all the various inputs they receive from external reality and then re-elaborate it in a personal way through their own individual vision.
It’s interesting that when I’m working, sometimes I catch a glimpse of parallels with different artistic periods, and I think that’s due to the fact that working with naturalistic forms, it’s very likely that sooner or later you come across the same possibilities for exploration that other artists in the past dealt with, for example those who worked during the Gothic and Baroque periods. But then, all artists, in interpreting a particular theme or a specific universe, express themselves through an individual language.
ENM: And as far as functionality is concerned, your works are sometimes designed to be functional, but the functionality isn’t immediately perceivable, because it’s often camouflaged in the form. What’s your relationship with the functional (albeit sporadic) aspect of your work?
KCS: I feel quite free from this point of view, and then it also depends a lot on what country I’m in and the audience’s cultural background. Very often, people are a bit afraid of mixing disciplines, like art and design, for example. As far as I’m concerned, in recent years I’ve created a few works that, as you said, aren’t just sculptures but that could also be used to hold candles or flowers. The idea of candles, in particular, came to me because of the sacred aesthetic that some of the pieces have – not in the religious sense of the term, because I don’t feel committed or devoted to any specific religion. For me, nature is sacred, like the natural principles that create us, human beings, and the universe – for me, that’s the essence of sacredness. And that’s how I got the idea of having an “additional level” in some of my works which is to give the user the possibility of utilizing a sculpture to hold candles. If you think of church altars, for example, that’s something that leads you immediately to the idea that it’s befitting of a sacred place. The same goes for flowers – if you see nature as something sacred, you create a place for flowers that fits with the value you want to give them. Honestly, I don’t fear the criticism of those who don’t approve of associating form and function. During my studies at the Academy, there were some people who thought you couldn’t work with ceramics because they considered ceramics a material strictly tied to the sphere of the decorative arts. But that’s not my issue, because when I work, I need to feel completely free.
ENM: As far as design is concerned, you said you never make preparatory sketches or drawings – the project is in your mind, and the work takes shape as it’s created.
KCS: That’s right! I have the feeling that the things I look at and that fascinate me and make an impression on me are stored in my mind, and when I start working they naturally come out. Very often I’ll discover that new ideas pop into my mind when I’m working on a piece. So, for example, now that I’m leaving for the US and I’ll be working there in the near future, I’m sure my work and my creative process will be influenced by new inspirations and new stimuli. I’m really curious to see what happens!