Harald Stoffers

Harald Stoffers’ (*1961, Hamburg) letters have been shown in galleries from New York to Tokyo and in such prestigious institutions as the Mona (Australia), the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Germany), the Oliva Creative Factory (Portugal), the Dox Art Center (Prague) and the Maison Rouge (Paris). His distinctive graphic works form part of renowned private and public collections in Germany, France, Portugal, England, Japan and the USA.

For more than 20 years Harald Stoffers has developed his artistic practice of writing letters. He kicks off the process by choosing a paper and size, from tiny and ordinary to strong and ultra large, and marks a frame or window for the text. The next stage is drawing freehand guidelines, each aligned with the preceding ones. The effect is reminiscent of the constant repetitions that occur in nature in the form of wave movements, wood grain or rock strata. Through his passionate and meticulous writing, he developed a formal language, in which the drive to communicate exceeds the mere content of the words. His graphic work is emotionally charged and of a peculiar intensity, connecting modes of time and space.

Harald Stoffers‘ letters can be read as seismographic traces of everyday life, as musical scores of daily rhythms, moods and exertions, as webs of composed conceptual communication and much more. In his work Stoffers combines visual and significant features of an individual language which is determined by his own specific rules and triggers resonance.

HARALD STOFFERS‘ (*1961) „Briefe“ werden in internationalen Institutionen, Galerien und Museen ausgestellt und sind in wichtigen Kunstsammlungen weltweit vertreten. Harald Stoffers zieht Schreibhilfslinien einer Zeile, bevor er in diese mit Text füllt. Dabei richtet der Hamburger Künstler jede einzelne Linie an der vorhergehenden aus. Es entsteht ein Effekt, der an sich ständig wiederholende Konstellationen von Linienmustern erinnert, wie sie in der Natur in Form von Wellenbewegungen, Maserungen oder Schichtungen auftreten. In die vorgefertigte Spur schreibt er dann alltägliche Notizen, Erinnerungen, Zeile für Zeile, bis ein sich schließlich ein rätselhaftes Gesamtbild ergibt.