In an absurdist age like ours, when just about anything can end up being promoted as art, it is refreshing to see what one recognizes, at first sight, to be the real thing. And this can be said of all of Ursula Corleis’ works, be they pictorial or sculptural.
Her delicate watercolours, more or less abstract as the spirit moves her, evoke our common awareness of the wide world, most often of landscapes, always striking a lyrical note. The viewer feels drawn in by a congenial spirit, reminded of his or her own experiences, often feeling: “ Ah, yes. That’s the way it is…”
When working in stone or bronze, she once again expresses only the essential, the core – that which we recognize as our own and universal. In a partridge carved in marble, there appears to be little definition, only so much as we needed when we said “partridge” for the first time. Here as in all her conceptions, high art takes us back from present clutter to innocence and discovery.
George D’Almeida
"In Germany my dominant shapes had been the square and the cube. In Italy the circle and the sphere took over. My development started when I applied layers of highly transparent watercolour to paper. Then, year for year, my colours became stronger and more opaque. Even after I had begun sculpting in stone, watercolour remained my preferred medium. But this too began to change as abstract shapes came to interest me more and more.
Ursula
"Years later my way of painting with watercolours came to a dead. I needed a different medium for expressing my sensations and emotions.
Pastels seemed to be the answer. Using the tips of my fingers I rub colour onto paper. When I am in touch with my feelings, my fingertips intuitively make my inner landscape visible. To me, being unlimited and free of limitations, is always a great experience! ”
Ursula
