Photos: Sonia Rentsch archive.
Sonia Rentsch is an Art Director and Still Life Artist from Australia. It seems that without even thinking one is easily dragged into her work, which is engrossed with little details, the admiration of the beauty of environment and positivity. Minimalistic style and neat arrangement are surprising in a sense that it gives art a perspective to be both flawless and effortless.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your passions, inspirations and challenges that you face as an artist?
The things I like in life are incredibly straight forward. I enjoy good company, I am adamant that I both live and work in smart beautiful spaces and I am inspired by the people who chose to make their own paths.
Taking different routes every time I go to places that is important to me – be just down the street for coffee, or across town for a shoot. I like getting lost. It’s almost a challenge to find yourself ‘off the map’ these days. We have so many apps that tell us the shortest, quickest route but I like to take the long scenic ones. I think it is important to stumble upon things. The best kind of inspiration is the unexpected and the unknown.
My greatest passion is by far my work. Creating scenes and sets to be captured in photographs feels like an indulgent pleasure. I am incredibly lucky to be paid to do it. There is really very few other jobs I’ve ever done (and I have done a few) that come close to the feeling of working on set. There’s an adrenalin rush I feel every time I step through a studio door with the knowledge we will have created and captured something before the day is done. I’m uncertain that will ever pass.
Challenges are part and parcel of any job. Mine stem mainly from convincing clients to push an idea in a more creative direction. Creativity does still seem to infuse fear at points. It makes me laugh but persuading people to let me lead is also a challenge I enjoy.
I think one of first things I have noticed while looking at your works was bright, warm and soft colors. Could you talk about your aesthetics? Do you have a strict set of rules that you follow?
Far from it! I love colour and to date, the work I’ve produced is quite tame in terms of what I’d really like to do. As much as I like to lead creatively, I have to respect clients’ aesthetics and boundaries. Simple bright colours are easy to sell, hence there are lots of them in my work.
I’m very much still an aspiring artist and as my confidence grows so does my aesthetic. There hasn’t been any time to produce personal imagery for a while now but I would very dearly like to soon. It’s those shoots that allow me to express my ideas unrestrained.
What is the message to the audience? Do you want to encourage people to reconsider some issues?
The message is to always look again – search for the beauty, reconsider the obvious, look for the positive. If in some way my work can encourage this then it feels worthwhile. YB Yeats said “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
Your work seems to be very close to the Nature. For example, your project “Harm Less” was not only organic but also sympathetic towards the Nature. Why do you pay so much attention to it? What does stimulate your interest in it?
My creative inclinations come very much encouraged by my Grandparents. As a child my brother and I would spend our holidays with them. My Grandmother would instigate all sorts of activities based upon exploring and imagination. We would paint rock animals to fill her garden and build flowers from bottle caps to populate her sunroom in winter. Every possible object, be it natural or unnatural was a treasure in Grans hands.
When Gran was busy we’d spend the rest of our time helping our Grandfather in his vegetable Garden and Orchard. It was a wonderland. My sense of what it means to tend nature, the beauty of it, the rewards of it and the calm joy it brings will always be carried with me from that time.
You are an amazing prop stylist as well. Where does this passion and taste come from?
Like being born with Green Eyes, I do think the way one views the world comes pre-packaged as part of your gene pool. I’m not great with maths or historical facts but I’m good with picking things that work together and like my Grandmother – seeing the world in a fresh light.
My parents built the house I grew up in and it was a modernist heaven of light and space. I also have them to thank for my conscious and constant understanding of tasteful inspiring design.
Art and technology seem to have merged into a brand new culture. Do you think that art as a separate phenomenon has a chance to survive? What is your opinion?
Art will never die. I just don’t imagine that anything will ever be able to replace the feelings evoked by standing inside something like a Richard Serra or in front of a perfect Matisse. It’s like talking to someone in an online chat room, it’s entertaining for a brief period but it has no soul.
I read recently that the next generations of children are starting to move away from things like mobile phones. These objects are so familiar from day 1 that they don’t hold the same appeal as to those of us who were around when the technology was fresh. It pleased me to read this. There’s a wide world out there and a lot of people seem to be missing it right now. I also think technology will evolve and push us further out into the world as appose to sucking us in.
Can you tell us about some of your projects you are planning to pursue in near future.
I just moved from Australia to the US so for a start I’ll simply be pursing getting settled – post that I’ll take anything and everything the world will throw at me.
