Biography

Dr Stefanie Schulte grew up in Germany and studied Fine Art in Barcelona
and Madrid before moving on to London and Australia. Her earlier work as
sculptor received international attention. After completing a PhD in Fine
Art, she put her studio work on hold to focus on her young family. Today,
she is based in Canberra and pursues her career as painter and
photographer.
Australia has become the starting point for new departures. Finally, the
hunger for colours – built up during years of sculpting – found novel ways
to manifest in her new studio. Today, she mainly uses the three primary
and three secondary colours, the colours of our rainbow, or, in other
words, the six root colours of the spectrum. They are the strings of her
instrument to intone and interpret the harmonies and dissonances of
colour. Their shades offer ever growing possibilities of interaction — neverending and fascinating.
Stefanie’s sculptures were organic constructions built up from within, from
a kind of skeleton, growing towards the outside to inform their cover, the
thin material like aluminium mesh representing an outer skin.
Her paintings are constructions as well, but they are constructions in two
dimensions. They are built by “stacking” up layers of colour. Some of these
paintings contain an endless number of thin layers that can be perceived at
the edges of a colour field or simply through the depth of a shade.
To Stefanie, painting is motion on canvas. Whilst she creates a painting,
movement extends into two directions.
In vertical motion she explores interactions between shades placed on top
of each other. To a degree, it is predictable how a shade will react on top
of another. But there is always an element of surprise, and that can be
exciting or disappointing— it brings life into the process!
In horizontal motion she shifts fields of colour to explore certain partitions
of the canvas. These fields morph and move like tectonic plates until the
final piece of the puzzle is found to lock all remaining pieces in. That
redeeming piece, the one to complete the composition, is often not easily
found— it is not difficult to start a new painting, but very hard to finish it!
These paintings are not made quickly, they take time and serenity to grow
into the right combination of layers. All brush strokes are placed “free
hand” to yield a warmer and more organic interface than the “hard-edge”
of geometric abstraction afforded by the use of sticky tape.
An affinity for geometry and a desire for construction might have been
imprinted by the architectural plans surrounding her every day as she grew
up with her parents running an architectural firm