The Spirit of Colour: Sonja Kalb

In your work, the language of colours is emotional. When does it start? You often refer to travelling as a source of inspiration, the immersive experience in the natural environment, which is inspiring your artist's vision. Can you expand on how you translate those vibrations into visual canvases?

As I have lived and travelled, I have always tried to see the world with open eyes. Throughout nature, one can see an endless variety of colour nuances and combinations. I often say: “Nature paints the most amazing images!” Colours are not only aesthetic; they also exert energetic power because each colour has its own wavelength that influences the body. For thousands of years, colours have been an integral part of our well-being. This intuitive knowledge incorporates itself into my art because colour is not merely visual but also emotional and physical. Colour schemes in my paintings often reflect a craving for certain colours that I happen to feel during my work. Colour nourishes and sustains me.

A famous quote by Joan Mitchell says, "My paintings are titled after they are finished. I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me - and remembered feelings of them, which of course, become transformed. I could certainly never mirror nature. I would more like to paint what it leaves with me." How much does the ‘to paint what it leaves with me’ match your process? Do you relate to and renew the American Abstract Expression (1960) of the super Helen Frankesthaler and Joan Mitchel?

Both Mitchel and Frankenthaler created intensive colour spaces full of motion and depth. I strive to integrate these aspects into my own art. At the same time, my work is influenced by my personal way of perceiving the world and my surroundings, which departs from other historical movements and follows its own path. Nature is an important inspiration, not as a mere template but as an emotional echo that I transform into colour and composition.

Like them, I work within the realm of Abstract Expressionism, but I have my own style due to the haptic structure of my colour layering, informed by my knowledge of the psychological and energetic impact of colour on our psyche and well-being.

Your substantial layers of painting material resonate with some of the Jackson Pollock ways to experience the act of painting?

I work with brush and palette knife as well as with oil pastels. I layer colours on the canvas, shape them, and vary them endlessly. This manner of working emphasises movement, rhythm, and dynamic. The whole process from conception, colour selection, until the last brushstroke of realisation is an intuitive interplay between hand, artistic instrument, and material.

The texture of the colour influences my approach. Some layers arise through quick impulsive movements, others through slow, almost meditative application.

"I don’t resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint." - Helen Frankenthaler

You are an artist who is also a woman. What are your thoughts about making your voice heard in a man's world? And in a man's history of art, even in a man’s art market while retaining your identity as an artist? Meaning an artist is an artist and shouldn't matter gender or origin.

First and foremost, I see myself as an artist, full-stop – independently of my gender or ethnicity. I find it important to be visible as an artist, that my art originates from my individual being. In the end, the artwork itself is what counts, not the gender of the person who created it.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working on different projects for the galleries that represent me, which reflect my artistic development and present new impulses in relation to nature as a central theme. This year, I’m also a member of a jury appointed to select artworks for inclusion in a group exhibition of a South Korean Museum.

Future dreams?

My vision for the future is to place my art in ever more museums, art collections, and foundations. In the long term, I desire that my artworks feature in important cultural institutions and are perceived in a broader art historical context. On the other hand, I also find it very important that people derive pleasure from my art, feel moved by it, and acquire new perspectives for seeing nature with fresh eyes. Humanity must recognise what art does for people. Art has the power to forge universal connections beyond geographic borders and cultural viewpoints.

You can find out more about Sonja and her works on our website arteglobale.com and Artsy artsy.net. We would love to start a conversation and are happy to provide further information.