About the Studio

THERE IS NO STRAIGHT LINE HERE.

Bend The Line is the studio of artist Alina Stenzel, where paintings begin without a clear destination.

I am interested in what happens when you stop trying to make everything make sense.

A line starts somewhere.
Another one interrupts it.
Colour changes the direction.
One decision creates another.

Gradually, something begins to take shape.

I don't work from sketches of what a painting should become. I let the work develop through movement, instinct and response. Sometimes I know when something is right. Sometimes I only know when it isn't — and that is enough to keep going.

BETWEEN CONTROL AND INSTINCT

There is a constant tension in the way I work.

Part of me wants to control the composition — to create balance, rhythm and movement.

Another part wants to disrupt it.

That tension is where the paintings begin to find their character.

The work changes as I respond to what is happening on the canvas. A colour can shift the balance of the whole piece. A new mark can change the energy of what came before it. Sometimes the direction becomes clear only after I have already started.

I don't always know where the painting is going.

And I like that.

THE SPACE I LEAVE FOR YOU

I don't want my paintings to come with instructions.

There doesn't have to be a particular thing you are supposed to see in them.

Maybe a colour catches you first. Maybe the movement of a line. Maybe something you can't quite explain.

That's enough.

I make the painting. What happens when you stand in front of it belongs partly to you.

FROM THE STUDIO

Every original work is made by hand in my studio in Ireland.

I work with pen, paint, colour and layered marks, allowing each piece to develop differently.

There is no formula for making a Bend The Line painting — and that is exactly the point.

The work is allowed to change.

I am too.