Doris Althaus

Residence period: January 2019
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Diario de impresiones

Doris arrived in Blanca with the idea of creating a small wall-installation during her month long
residency. Seeing Spain from a bird’s view while on the plane to Madrid, the reticular division of fields, plantations, trees and irrigation systems fascinated her. In the first days of her residency, Doris explored Blanca and the landscape. Again, during long walks, she found grids and lines everywhere: cracks in the parched soil, reticular formations of dried agave leaves, architecture, cracks and peeling paint on the facades of houses, rusty road signs, grates and fences, ornate balcony railings and Blanca’s roofs viewed from above.
Fascinated by the landscape’s variety and the diverse colours of rocks and soil, she documented her impressions with sketches and photos. She decided to work first with two different kinds of clay: a brown-reddish stoneware clay and a porcelain. First she created structures on sheeted clay plates, but realised soon these were too shallow. To create more dimensionality she started to build different forms of small rectangular and square jars. This enabled her to use various techniques of working structurally; making cavities, cutting out, carving in, printing and painting.
During a walk, the idea to write down all her impressions of words she encountered in Spanish came to her mind. Words on signs, words she needs to interact, words she has to look up the meaning of: all reveal a lexicon of daily life. The idea of a typeface arose, and she began stringing together the words in capital letters. She started to carve in this text on her small objects, and so the title of Doris’ project emerged: Diario de impresiones. Her small objects became diaries; each with its own history. By playfully arranging the small rectangular and square shaped objects, new reticular structures and architectural images emerge.

During further walks, Doris collected different coloured soils. She mixed them with water, painting the muddy soils on wooden boards and let them dry, later processing the mixtures into simple geometric shapes and composing an installation of them.