Axelle Kieffer

Axelle Kieffer
Savannah, Georgia, USA

STATEMENT

Since moving to the US, I started wandering around at the flea markets and collecting old illustration medical books mainly, and I ended up collecting all kinds of books, vintage photos and small treasures. It has been a way for me to be connected to my new country and home through new imagery. Small ephemeras and old papers speak a lot and they speak loudly. Moving to another country surely did shape my creativity. I started experimenting with these papers and photos. My process becomes an appropriation of these objects by cutting, covering, hiding, (re)assembling in the manner of a palimpsest. The collages evolve and change depending on the material found and available. Selecting an image, cutting a piece of paper and using paper cuts to create another image with a different meaning is a way to be in touch with the world around me. Collaging opens a new perspective of my identity by simultaneously confronting collective memories and individual consciousness. It has been a dialogue with my uncertainty and ultimately connection with the outside world.

For a long time, my collages featured more figurative with anatomical elements. Yet as I was working on those collages, I started to look at the discarded elements from my cuts, scattered across the table and floor. In those remaining shapes and colors became inadvertent arrangements and harmonious patterns. I became an observer. I began to see their potential as organic compositions in their own right, as interesting as the deliberately constructed interplays I had done before. I found myself shying away from the figurative elements to focus essentially on abstract compositions. Using cuts from body parts to create grotesque hybrids seems to aim to a new world concealing art, science and poetry.

BIO

Born and raised in France, Axelle currently lives and works in Savannah, Georgia in the United States.

After obtaining a license in comparative literature at the University of Strasbourg, France, Axelle began studying the Logogramme poems of Christian Dotremont, founder of the artistic movement CoBrA. This research brings her closer to the world of visual arts and awakens her artistic passion. Since then, Axelle has embarked on a career as an artist.

It was when she moved to the United States that Axelle began collecting medical books, tearing them apart and gradually inserting them into her works. Her collages dig into human anatomy and play with organs in the form of cut-out papers.

Axelle has exhibited her works in Europe and the USA. Her work can be found in private collections in France, Belgium, Great Britain, New York and Los Angeles.

ARTIST CONTACT

[click to email]
axellekiefferart.com

IMAGES