Stefan Holzmair

One of his sculptures is an empty pair of spiked trousers, resting on a really uncomfortable mattress.

“It’s rather daft to make something like that out of ceramic.”

His starting point are everyday shapes and objects, which he extracts, combines and transforms into abstract compositions. The results are both familiar and absurd, mundane and eerie.

Found objects and collage

Stefan works with collage in both two and three dimensions. For his two-dimensional pieces, he combs through old magazines, particularly those devoted to architecture, cutting out shapes and rearranging them into new compositions. These are then scanned and transferred onto different surfaces, from canvas to glass.

His three-dimensional work begins with a different kind of treasure hunt: through streets, rubbish bins, flea markets and second-hand shops, in search of discarded objects that he can use as moulds. From these, he casts ceramic forms, which he then repeats, combines and rearranges into larger, modular compositions, until the original objects become unrecognisable. The resulting large-scale sculptures feel at once familiar and unsettling, evoking fragments of architecture or urban furniture whose original function has been lost.

“At first, the working methods are surprisingly similar. But working on the collage remains playful, while working on the large ceramic pieces, in particular, is very physical. It’s very challenging.”

His own favourite piece comes from the collage side of that line. “homesick (simulation)” is a paper collage fired in fusing glass, one of the first he made with that technique.

As for what feeds his work, he draws on everyday life and his own experiences, or even the lack of them.

“Going to a museum is just as inspiring as a techno party in the woods.”

Absurdity and transformation

“I’m trying to understand what’s happening around me and within me. And much of it seems very absurd to me. So, I’m trying to symbolize this absurdity through my work.”

Through unexpected juxtapositions, playful distortions and the transformation of ordinary objects, he creates a world in which familiar forms lose their original meaning and acquire new, often enigmatic identities.

The creatures that emerge from this process belong to a contemporary imagination, shaped as much by digital representations of bodies and materials as by the physical world. They sit somewhere between living organism and machine, between sculpture and architecture, and they appear to have insides: intricate networks running through them, openings that suggest bodily functions, amorphous channels with no clear beginning or end. Neither entirely organic nor artificial, they seem caught mid-change, as though constantly dismantling and recreating themselves.

“I’m interested in states of transition because they unsettle us and make us question so many things. And we’re living in a time where things are changing rapidly, whether we like it or not.”

The Salemi residency

Stefan’s residency in Salemi started with a hunt. In his first week he went to Palermo looking for discarded objects to press into clay, and the studio table now holds the results alongside the shapes taken from them.

“I have sketchbooks full of ideas for sculptures but never enough time to work on them. So for my time in Salemi I’d love to just play around with clay, because that’s when my best work comes out.”