Getting To Know... Bridge Stehli

Dazzlingly talented Sydney-based artist Bridge Stehli tells BobbySix.com about her inspirations, her battles with spiders and her peculiar phobia:

Art is difficult to describe in words that do it justice.

I would describe my style as absurd, nostalgic, obscene, obsessive, laboured, gaudy, anatomically incorrect, historically inaccurate, grotesque, cutesy, contradictory, animated, reflective, secretive, idealistic.

I take inspiration from wherever I can get it. Which is usually cartoons and classic novels. I’ve been known to stay in on a Friday night with an old classic or a stack of Warner Bros cartoons many a time. It’s usually a case of jogging my own memory as a lot of what I work from is already stored in my head, the problem is, it’s quite confusing in there. There’s no real filing system in place so often I will re-visit things several times in order to detangle something useful. I’m currently being haunted by this illustration I remember from when I was a child. It’s vague and I can’t, for the life of me, remember what it’s from but it’s something like dogs dressed up for dinner, the ladies are Afghan hounds and are wearing Georgian corsetry and dresses. They have cleavage that’s sort of...hairy.

Other times, I’ll watch a documentary or read an article about the plight of a particular species of animal and just become kind of obsessed, that will usually lead to a painting. Other times I’ll meet someone, look at them and think ‘fuck, does this guy realize he resembles a lizard?’.

Sydney is sometimes an upper, sometimes a downer. Also it’s full of bloody White-tailed spiders and one of them bit me.

It might surprise people to learn that I am deathly afraid of babies. I would not be coping had I been bitten by a baby.

I'm currently working on a solo show. It’s been a long time coming. It’s killing me. So is my arm. Stupid spider.

Below you will find a couple of examples of Bridge's amazing work. Check out more of her awesomeness at her website.

Paste-Modernism 2

In August 2008, the first Paste-Modernism event hit Sydney with a resounding, wheat-paste splodge on the derelict walls of the infamous Hibernian House. Yesterday saw the long-awaited sequel at Lo-Fi Gallery.

Over 30 artists, including Ben Frost, Bridge Stehli and Numskull, entered the space a few days before the opening and transformed the walls into a visual mash-up of pasted-up creations; the kind normally only ever seen on the streets. From hand-painted colour to black-and-white photocopies, from screenprints to large-scale drawings, the only restriction was that the work
had to be on paper and wheat-pasted to the walls of the gallery.

In the same way that street art is a movement available to everybody, the concept of Paste-Modernism is not defined by any 'artist hierarchy' or exclusivity and so the call-out to artists was open to everybody who wanted to participate.

The constantly evolving exhibition will only be up for a couple more days, so don't delay if you wanna check it out. You'll find it at LO-FI Collective, 383 Bourke St Darlighurst, Sydney.