Gustava's Kiss, 2023
ceramic earthenware on steel spine and base
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About the Artist
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Transcription
Hi. My name is Lisa Hölzl. I live and work in an old bakery in the Midjuburi precinct of Marrickville on Gadigal Land. My sculpture is called Gustava’s Kiss. It’s constructed from hand-painted, hand-built ceramic beads threaded onto a steel spine about 1.7 meters tall.
I started this artwork by painting some totemic shapes inspired by some of the shapes and motifs that I loved in Gustav Klimt’s best known painting called The Kiss. It is one of a series of works I decided to make this year to pay homage to my deceased creative muses. The work is also a memorial to my Austrian Grandmother and father. When I was 12 years old, my Grandmother Hermina Hölzl died, so my parents and I travelled from our home town of Lismore, all the way to Vienna, to visit her grave. My most vivid memories of that trip were the paintings of Gustav Klimt, and the beautiful Vienna cemetery where we lit a candle for Omi.
Gustava’s Kiss pays homage to Gustav Klimt’s artistic legacy and the sense of love and longing so palpably captured in his painting of two lovers embracing under a heavily decorated cloak. In my sculpture, I have tried to translate two dimensional motifs and shapes from Klimt’s painting, and transform them into 3D, sculptural forms. These forms include a flower bed, a coat, a sphere, a pair of hands, lips and a spiral. The base represents the fertile flower garden and the osmosis of nature where the garden is internalised and out of which, abstracted figures grow. The coat represents the lovers concealed within revealing a vulnerable pink shoulder. Its heavy ornamentation of organic and rectilinear forms symbolise their feminine and masculine energies: feminine, through flowing lines in swirling colourful motifs; masculine, by black and silver rectangles and straight lines. Anatomy and ornament have become one, reminding us that through love we can find a timeless connection to both nature and the universe.
Other forms include the lovers’ hands tenderly embracing each other, while the lips literally suggest their kiss. The pinnacle of the work is a spiral representing the mystical nature of all forms of love both spiritual and erotic as well as the connection of life and death to the universe.
Originally a painter, I have really enjoyed applying underglazes in a painterly way to these symbolic, sculptural forms. Making this work also made me reflect on the nature and meaning of a kiss. The pandemic changed my perception of who, where and how often we wanted to kiss someone. Overnight, kissing became taboo. At first I felt relieved to dispense with the superficial habit of greeting relative strangers with a kiss, but as time went on, I began to appreciate and miss the odd kiss and hugging of hands and bodies. They are such simple acts that speak of love and familiarity, the memory of which can create a sense of great loss, when no longer experienced.
The meditative hand-building and glazing processes involved in making this work has also evoked many beautiful memories for me of my art muses, my Austrian heritage, my grandmother and my father. It also made me reflect upon all the long-lasting and loving relationships I have enjoyed throughout my life, that I hope will last eternally.