Transformative Artist, PETRONILLA "My Art Happens and Unfolds Like My Life."

Petronilla Hohenwarter

This dynamic lady was born in Waldkirchen, Germany; a small rural town in the Bavarian forests. Petronilla grew up surrounded by mountains and nature, far removed from the hustle and bustle of city life. An unassuming provincial town where life has a different rhythm; things move at a slower pace, it takes longer to adapt to and adopt life’s changes and developments. 

 Petronilla was the eldest of three children. Her brother Markus died at the young age of 20 and Petronilla has a sister Sandra, 8 years her junior, who is very dear to her. Petronilla shares “My parents ran their own business and looking back, I had a very normal childhood, nothing out of the ordinary. I attended a convent boarding school and my early years were shaped by the strict Roman-Catholic ethos of the school and its teachers. Early on, the confines and constraints of this environment set me on the path to find a creative outlet for my feelings, but at this stage this was expressed in a conventional and non-revolutionary way. I worked in social pedagogy in this same rural town for several years, but I soon started to ask myself: is this really everything? Life had more to offer. So, in 1993, I bid farewell to my hitherto safe life and embarked on a journey within myself and into the wider world, in search of something as yet unknown. I needed to learn, be alive, independent, free, and face whatever consequences this new life would bring.”

“I was unafraid, ready to take risks and follow my intuition. With a healthy dose of blind optimism to boot, I took on extraordinary challenges. I traveled to the USA, Southeast Asia and Europe, furthering my education and gathering experiences in different areas of life (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and creative). This enabled me to explore and embrace other perspectives and worlds, and in so doing, to discover the truth within me and find a spiritual home in the new life I had chosen for myself. I have had many mentors along the way. In nearly all cases, our paths crossed by chance, yet they all shaped me and my personal development significantly. Even though some experiences were emotionally and mentally painful, the past 15 years of “independence” were infused with an energy that gave me the inner strength and confidence to pursue this path. I made a conscious decision to pursue this fulfilling and enriching life as an artist. I wanted to use my art to explore the “something” that I could not see; to reflect it, make it visual, quite simply to reveal it. This something has many definitions throughout the world was strength, energy, basic trust, love, power, God, and it is at the heart of us all, irrespective of the religion, philosophy, continent and culture in which we feel at home.”

Petronilla shares "My life is a journey and the artwork is my biography. Every work of art , series of works, and projects are an expression and expansion of myself. It teaches and guides me on my way, the supreme flow of energy within me is aligned and emits through the artwork into the universal whole. In a nutshell, I have the passion and desire to give birth to release plus to transform the invisible “treasure” of the whole, the energy, and its independent existence during the creative process. It happens as it flows while I am as I am. "

Petronilla’s Artist Statement

"I do not paint, it happens. Finally, I am arriving at an important point in life. It creates a conscious momentum towards a level; there is a whole new dimension and perspective that has been arising. The technique, the material and the use of it, as the skills are still the same and yet different. The key point is the process in itself. It has been a profound intensive development over a period of time. At this certain stage of my life, my Art is not a tool to express the energy in and around me any longer, as I have felt it before.   I have evolved the past year and it has shaped and centered the scattered energies. Throughout my artistic state of being I would claim to say I act as a "filter”, crystal clear and highly sensitive and perceptive. I venerate the natural beauty of our planet earth and the existence of the energy of the universe. I do my very best to reflect its outstanding breathtaking natural harmony and its distinctive being as also once in a while the mankind produced chaos. It's transformed visually through the artwork which then appears"

Read the entire article on Petronilla in the ACS Magazine January/February 2017 Issue at http://www.acs-mag.com.

Petronilla Hohenwarter is represented by ACS Gallery