Chats with Selected Artist-Paula Petroll

Artist Name : Paula Petroll

Question 1: How did you get to where you are now?

The long, CV- based answer would be: I went to art school in Hamburg (Germany), got my Bachelor in Wellington (New Zealand), did  a few  residencies in the UK and the Netherlands and got my Masters Degree a bit over a year ago at the Glasgow School of Art.

The short answer is: I really like drawing.

Question 2: Have you ever gotten halfway through with a project or idea and changed direction and why?

My practice is based on the approach of making- stepping back- adjusting, in that sense I am very familiar with changing a project as I work on it.

I usually have an abstract basic idea of what I want to do, what I want the final piece to ‘say’, but I always leave room for the vocabulary to change.

Especially with site- specific work you never know exactly what you have to work with until you are in the space- it maybe smaller/bigger/brighter/darker, your tools might work differently or not at all... Responding to the characteristics of a space is what, for me, makes working much more interesting and for a better final art work.

Question 3: What is your idea for Hidden Door 2016?

For  this  year’s Hidden Door  festival I am going to return to the space I was using last year, where I made a full room installation, drawing on walls, the floor, the ceiling. I am curios to see what the space feels like, now that I haven’t seen it for a year- and also, what is left of it and how I can use it as a new, reframed question mark to respond to: to see last year’s work as an echo and to map out it’s resonances. 

I am also  planning to extend the work more in to its three dimensional space and -as a result- have an emerging environment, a map that the viewer can walk through.

From 27 May – 4 June 2016 Hidden Door will return to the amazing disused street lighting depot behind Kings Stables Road in Edinburgh. Click here for ticket info