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BOOKS-OF-THE-DAYS (Exhibition Galeriehaus, Nürnberg)
"The Preserved Days"
In
December 1992 Stefani Schneider started to work on the project "The
Preserved Days", which deals - with interruptions - until today
with the inquiry of time.
The main part is represented by a book-rack in which the „Tagesbücher“
are preserved.
Each “Tagesbuch“ has the size of 33,3 cm x 18 cm, 4 pages, mainly cardboard.
The techniques are variable: Handprinting, brush - and graphite- drawing,
acrylic-painting.Sometimes also collages are used here. The basic idea
of these books is, to make time visible through daily work.The
„Tagesbücher“ take in through pictures or/and text the current mood of
the day, or refer to superior topics of Stefani´s work. In the
three dimensional W-form, the "Tages- bücher“ themselves reflect
for Stefani the ups and downs of daily routine .
Beside that the sketches of the hours emerge, small paper works of different
format, which are exactly dated and provided with the time of the completion,
deepen the idea of time more further. At the same time the density of
life (delight, grief, hope, fears) is preserved in the „Tages-büchern“,
and/or sketches of the hours , revived, perhaps even first obtained. Here
the present becomes the passage in which the past and the future are contained
in.
This work reflects a kind of „eternal“ present.
Helga von Rauffer
About Stefani Schneider´s
Artwork
Excerpt of a speech at the private view at
Bi-Pi´s
Kulturgalerie Cologne, May 1995
...
There are pictures that lead into our innermost self, pictures that can
be used for meditation.
I can see that Stefani Schneider´s artwork leads us in this direction,
touching
however on many other areas, which art strives to portray.
In the last ten years Stefani Schneider has given us very sensitive art
especially
in the period, where she has worked as a freelance artist. The focal point
of her work is a depiction of vulnerability and empathy with very specific
frightening or pleasurable situations.
Each exhibition, each
piece of artwork, we are confronted with for the first time, requires
that we examine it closely. We do this automatically and ask ourselves
: „What is new here?“
..
What is then significant
in Stefani Schneider ´s work, what is new?
The hidden theme behind all of her work, however, seems to me to be the artist herself. Not in an egoistical, egocentric sense, but rather Stefani Schneider on the other side of an alert contemporary who notes and empathizes with what goes on around her.
There are the topics we encounter here, which we seldom find elsewhere
- in a similar nor in a different form. Yet these topics represent a
challenge in our times. Observation of daily life, everyday situation...
In her work the topics are sometimes recognizable, sometimes abstract with a distance to reality and a striking tendency to the vertical. One feels that the picture is moving forcefully upward towards the upper edge of the picture or perhaps even further.
Her pictures have very many levels of feeling which is reflected by the many layers she uses.
She works with experience and confidence in her techniques but is not restricted ...
Her
work makes very open, courageous and honest statements. The pictures are
not aggressive therefore not feministic but are candid, sympathetically
candid.
Prof.
Dr. Frank Günter Zehnder
(Direktor Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn)
Working in the studio of
Fiona Locke - , São Paulo, Brazil 1996