Interview with Ulla Hasen
Ulla Hasen was born in Austria in 1966 and lives in Vienna. She studied natural sciences and technology, works in the field of sustainable development and began painting late in life. Her acrylic paintings are mainly abstract, sometimes bordering on the figurative, and are created in a very rapid, intuitive process.
Growing up, you observed your grandfather painting naturalistic landscapes. How do you think this early exposure influenced your artistic journey?
When I stood behind my grandfather watching him painting, it was like a miracle what was happening before my eyes: how did he know where to put which stroke of colour? The transformation of what I saw with my own eyes into a picture with a clear image character, which was nevertheless something completely different, always remained a mystery to me. Visual lessons and advice did not help me to get into action myself. What I took away from this experience was a great respect for people with such superior abilities - and a feeling that not all paths in life are equally open to everyone. So I dedicated myself to other things - things that seemed accessible through learning. It was only in a roundabout way that I myself reached the point where images - albeit completely different ones - began to manifest themselves through my own actions.
However, the amount of time I spent alone in the nature at my grandparents’ when I was young, with few other distractions, also left me with a very large reservoir of inner landscape images, moods, shapes and structures, both large and small. This later stood me in good stead when I studied landscape ecology and planning, even if the aesthetic component played a subordinate role here.
Your studies in natural sciences and attendance at lectures on aesthetics, anthropology, and cultural studies seem to have played a significant role in your artistic development. Can you elaborate on how these academic experiences influenced your art?
The feeling of being able to immerse myself in nature was almost lost to me in the course of my scientific and technical involvement with partial aspects and system issues. My professional work in the field of sustainable development constantly shows me the limits of our modern management approaches. If you take an honest look, you realise that the question of the human condition needs to be asked much more precisely than all our strategic plans do. So my lifelong interest in philosophical questions proved to be very helpful in taking a broader view of problems. But what remains, even with the humanities in my luggage, is that there is no Archimedean point in sight - despite all the great moments of thought.
In a strange way, this ultimately led me to an experience of freedom: I make pictures, therefore I am! Where the will to shape our environments fails due to the resistance of the world and the mind fails due to feedback loops, it can happen that tiredness opens up the view to the obvious and simple, and the senses report back. Suddenly, nothing needs to have meaning any longer, nothing needs to be controlled. At such a moment, I felt the need to play with colour. Committed to nothing and no one.
But nevertehless my artistic activity, which is fuelled by an inner, non-intentional impulse, needs as a stimulating counterpart the mental working through of the world with all available means.
You've mentioned several influential figures, such as Konrad Paul Liessmann, Elisabeth von Samsonow, and Peter Sloterdijk. Could you share a specific idea or concept from their teachings that significantly impacted your artistic perspective?
Picking out something is anything but easy!
I owe Peter Sloterdijk, among many other things, the understanding of the deep structural connection between Romanticism and Modernism, which is also reflected in my "double life" as a painter and natural scientist.
With Konrad Paul Liessmann, I followed Kasimir Malevich into radical reduction, which for me feels like a home from which a cheerful abundance can unfold in a new way. I had a similar experience when studying Friedrich Schiller's "On the Aesthetic Education of Man".
Elisabeth von Samsonow opened my eyes to the connection between psychiatry and art.
Was there a particular moment or experience that prompted you to start creating your own art?
Yes, that was actually the case for me. I travelled to the well-known summer academy in Zakynthos (Greece) for a week to try out pottery and dance. After a sleepless night of travelling, I had to wait all morning until my room was free. Sitting around tired in paradise, in front of an old farmhouse, under a huge pine tree, surrounded by olive groves, immersed in the shimmering chirping of cicadas. A canvas with a broad, sweeping line leaned in a corner. My gaze wandered to it again and again. Until the thought solidified in my head: "It could work like this!"
I decided to give it a go for a morning. Then, completely clueless, I gathered some material and drew a line. And I, the eternally helpless and dissatisfied one, was completely happy with my first stroke. How could I not have carried on?
Could you describe the evolution of your artistic style since you began painting in 2019?
My style is experimental in nature and therefore has no monolithic character. In the beginning I used more brushes and wooden strips, later I mainly used various palette knives and squeegees. Usually I create series of paintings - minimalist or multi-layered, monochrome or multi-coloured, geometric or dynamic, abstract or bordering on the figurative.
The development within a series results from the fact that I react to what is happening. Time and again, something exciting happens that makes me take a different direction. Or I come across something somewhere - often the trigger has nothing to do with art - that gives me a new idea. Sometimes I also pick up on an earlier type of picture that doesn't seem to have been fully exhausted yet. So - at least at the moment - I wouldn't speak of the evolution of my style as much as I believe that an evolutionary approach is stylistically characteristic of me.
Looking back on your unique journey from a science background to attending art lectures and finally becoming an artist, how do you feel these diverse experiences have shaped your identity as an artist?
That's an interesting question! This background challenges me to think about dilettantism and to relate to it in a positive way. That's not easy. I know that my strength lies precisely in the connections that this opens up for me. But I'm not naïve enough not to realise that if you only have a very limited capacity for accountability in the context of the relevant discourses, you are quickly relegated to the margins at the end of the day.
Looking ahead, what vision do you have for the future of your art? How do you plan to evolve and grow, and what new territories or themes are you eager to explore in your future works?
My paintings arise from a kind of resonance experience in action that releases a deep joy. Ultimately, I want this resonance space to expand and increasingly involve other people. This desire drives me. From today's perspective at least, my work will remain athematic and playful.
The unromantic side of art also needs to be recognised: As an investment in the future, I am trying to build the necessary structures that will enable me to act as an entrepreneur and to explore my options in the art sector.
