Profile
Simone Florell
Born: 1977
Hometown: Berlin
Based in: berlin
In my formative teenage and young adult years I connected with art through the at the time flourishing art scene of my hometown Berlin and began to consciously deal with how art can impact the viewer, how it operates and what its service to society is. Since this epiphany, I have only been able to view what surrounds me from the perspective of art. To produce art myself was the logical next step for me after my 15 years as a freelance designer in advertising.
My core topics in my work are social structures, human relationships and their fragility and dynamics, sociology, anthropology, psychology and personal development, nature and education, culture, fears, needs and our stone age brain with its primordial impulses. Painting actually works for me like a systemic structural constellation.
About Simone Florell
What inspires you?
Becoming a mother for the first time radically expanded my interest in ever existent societal contexts like nature and nurture, culture, human fears and needs. Our stone-age brains with that underlying ancient psychological hard-wiring – crashing with modern life.
Describe your creative process.
All things sociology, anthropology, psychology and personal development are at the absolute forefront for setting my creative process in motion. For me each painting is like a little research trip. The expedition starts in my mind and continues on paper in its different stages. It’s no linear process: some forms gradually disappear under new ones, yet they are there, giving the works their characteristical layers. Works may also pause until the right time has come to continue painting them. And sometimes there’s no other way than an extreme course correction.
What are 3 words that best describe your work?
Organic, geometrical, layered
Who are some artists that have influenced your work?
Alexandra Exter, Anna Kagan, Lyubov Popova, Lissitzky, Malevich, Moholy-Nagy. Other than them for sure the likes of Sophie Calle with her relentless studies, Louise Bourgeois’ determination and eeriness in her works or for instance Jessica Walsh’s fearless side-projects and experiments.
What is the most important tool when creating your work?
Introspection for theme. Pen and paper for structure. Colour, brush and paper/canvas for painting.
Where do you go for inspiration?
Outside and inwards.