„Oh, how interesting, you are an A-R-T-I-S-T !! You are painting, aren’t you?“
No, I am not painting.
But how to explain in five minutes what I am doing?
I work in so many different ways.
Let me take a breath to start with. In case of well-disposed interest please follow me !
MY LIFE:
SUSANNE KITTEL-HABÖCK
textile art - work on paper - graphics - photography – writing - cartoons
born in Vienna, grown up in the mountains of Tyrol, lived in Geneva for 7 years and in The Netherlands for thirty years, moved back to Austria in 2003. She originally studied languages and international relations in Vienna & Paris (graduated 1965), later art as a second line of study, in Geneva, Vienna & in The Netherlands. Member of the Dutch Artist Club GBK and of the Austrian ‘Künstlerhaus’, Vienna. More than 100 exhibitions (in groups and individually) in The Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Germany, France, former Yugoslavia, Switzerland, Korea, Hungary, Japan and China. Lectures with slides about tactility, textile art, photography, poems of her own.
There is a second identity of Susanne Kittel-Haböck: as a cartoonist she calls herself Suzy Smile. Suzy Smile is publishing little stories about the tiny hassles in life, almost 200 booklets. Her three ‘de-depressing’ stories about ‘depressions’ found an enthusiastic audience.
MY MESSAGE
Although being based on quite a restricted number of subjects, I like to express myself in many different ways, in many different techniques.
It is all about vibrations and about visualization of feelings – joy, desires, expectations, interactions, searching for roots… therefore I use a chaos of lines, strings or words, which I compel into a specially chosen shape – distinct and clear.
I slowly approach my subject, I touch the surfaces with my inner eye and I try to discover life ‘under the skin’, to discover warmth, vivacity, awareness, brightness. I try to collect the remains of sunlight in the soul, to collect colourful memories - which don’t exclude darkness. There is no light without shadows.
Even in my cartoons I try to look ‘under the skin’ … I know, I know, this may be confronting sometimes, even though presented in a humorous way. As long as you don’t fall off the mountain!
My message as expressed in my native language:
“In meiner Arbeit
visualisiere ich
ein Berühren,
ein fast-Berühren,
lasse Worte
sich verdichten
sich vernetzen
durchdringen,
lasse Farben
sich verdichten
sich vernetzen
durchdringen,
setze Striche
mit Bleistift
mit Fäden
mit kupferglänzendem
Draht,
Transparenz
webe ich
und
Undurchsichtigkeit
streife
darüber
mit dem Finger
mit der Seele.“