Hyacinta Hovestadt

Posted on February 7, 2012 - by Kate

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I think Hyacinta Hovestadt might be the hardest artist to track down that I’ve ever blogged about.

I can’t find a website of her own but I can find many videos and fans of her work throughout a variety of sites. That could be because of the material she uses, recycled corrugated cardboard. I’ve written about other people who use cardboard and recycled mediums but hers to me look sort of hive like Hannah Verlin’s Nesting works.

I love that even though they’re made of cardboard, which could be modeled in any way, she still chooses to cut away what some would argue is “more” than she should, creating what look like wheel thrown ceramics that go awry (as mine always did).

The setting in nature are wonderful – you can really see how, like in papercutting, the various layers build upon the others to create what looks like a complete form. It looks more hand-wrought up close but from farther away it looks quite fluid.

From what Google Translate tells me, Hyacinta studied art education and fine arts at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf and Münster University. After that it appears that she worked as an art teacher at a high school and as a museum educator at the Art Collection of the North Rhine. Her bio read that she then spent years doing freelance work as a film director, writer, author and journalist.

She seems to have been a “creative” her whole life and it now experimenting with her medium and trying new things.

With the color variation it looks like a clam shell to me, which seems like exactly her inspiration area – nature and earth-tones. She uses this industrial material, destroys its initial use and recreates something out of it – which to me reads like the essence of recycling. What’s also interesting to note is that Hyacinta doesn’t look at the art market around her – she doesn’t want to know about other people doing things similar to her. I on one hand think that’s cool and on the other hand think it’s kind of sad but either way, I’m glad she’s making what she’s making!