An Interview with Malwine Stauss

We sat down with Malwine to talk about her fascination with the spiritist movement, her desire for slowness and the inspiration behind the Austin Austin sculpture.

Q: How did you become an artist?

I always drew as a child and went to art school. I started in Graphic Design and book making and later illustration. My graduation project was called ‘Hexen’ and it was about witches. Hexen means witches in German. For that I read a lot about witch hunts, spiritist painters and the spiritist movement in the 19th & 20th century.

Spiritist painters were considered outsider artists for a long time. Many female artists weren’t allowed to study art or to show their works because they were women. Artists like Hilma af Klint, who is very famous today, didn’t show her work much when she was alive. The same with Swiss artist Emma Kunz. They found outlets for their art through spiritualism.

The art world and my art school felt quite patriarchal and conservative at times.  So my focus was on women in the art world and their standing in history,  which led me to women with supernatural powers, ideas of witches and the spiritists. 

Q: How did you start working with ceramics?

It was during the pandemic, I was feeling stuck and a little frustrated. 

Ceramics felt intuitive for me from the first moment. I like that it’s connected to all four elements – earth, fire, water, air. And I love that you cannot force it. You have to be patient, you have to wait, you have to really be in communication with the material. That quality of surrender is something I find very compelling.

Q: What inspires your work?

I am interested in the actor-network theory – this idea that everything is in relation to each other, everything is connected, and interacting with everything else. Not just humans, but objects, weather, landscape. It goes well beyond a human-centred view of the world, which feels important in the context of ecological thinking.

I’m also drawn to science fiction, particularly Ursula Le Guin. Sci-fi can seem fantastical but it’s often a mirror to our own world – it asks big questions about utopia, spirituality, and how societies relate to each other and to nature, but in a fantastical way.

Q: You’ve spoken about transcendence in relation to your work. What does that mean to you?

I was raised very Christian, so questions of God and spirituality have been a big part of my life growing up – but I have always felt aversion to the patriarchal structures of the church.

I spent a lot of time in churches as a child and what we practise in religion often deals with transcendence – singing songs and looking at amazing artworks in churches which are often very big or overwhelming. 

Georgia O’Keeffe is someone I come back to often. She painted flowers and the desert – quiet, ordinary things – but if you spend time with her work, something shifts. It becomes almost spiritual. That’s the territory I’m interested in.

Q: Your work has a softness to it, how would you describe it?

A lot of ‘art spaces’ are dominated by men and the behaviours that are praised are often competitive and hard. Softness, slowness, gentleness – these things are not always valued there. I wanted to bring them in deliberately. We are living in an overwhelming time, and I believe there is real value in making work that is quiet and gentle.”

Q: Tell us about the sculpture you made for Austin Austin.

For most of my life I have moved home every few years. I’ve learned to bring certain objects with me – the things that make a space feel like yours, that make it feel grounded. I wanted to make something with that quality. Something that helps a space feel calm and at home.

“I made these sculptures in a time when I was looking to slow my life down, to be more grounded, restful and introspective. ” – Stauss 

Q: What is your hope for your work in the world?

Connection. That’s always the intention – to help people feel connected to the world and to the things around them. I keep coming back to the idea that all things are actors and part of a network of relationships, in that sense even objects carry a kind of life. My work is about making that felt. And about hopefulness. Those are the two things I always want to bring.

Stauss was captured in her studio by Kela-Mo Studio. All Rights Reserved.