‘Art in the Sky’ artists in conversation with Curator, Isabel Griffin

I'm from Austria.

I live very south in Austria, in the countryside.

Where I'm working, I also grow up.

So there always has been a strong connection for me to nature.

And when I was small, I was dreaming a lot about flying.

And then it kept on.

When I was like 16, I was still very fascinated about flying.

So I built myself huge wings to fly by myself.

It was just a short flight.

Then later I went to the art academy in Vienna and I studied textile and painting and also to become an art teacher.

But I was still kind of, how do you say, hooked on the idea of flying and it was also landscape and wind.

And then I had a very good art professor and when it was time to think about the subject for the thesis, she said, What is fascinating for you? And I thought, OK, it's the wind, it's the landscape, and the flying.

And that's how I discovered the subject kites.

So I wrote my thesis about kites.

And it took me like two years.

because i cannot only read and write i have also to do it so i started to make kites and then like since 2003 i'm freelance kite maker so it's like i live from this so like 50 is kind of doing installation like here But I'm also teaching.

And I'm very happy because in Austria, and I could imagine it's similar here in England or Wales, that we Europeans have kind of no tradition in kite making.

I mean, compared to Asia, that's why we don't know much about kites.

But because I see it in a missionary way, I thought, okay, I want that kite kind of start to be in the heads of people.

So I did a lot of teacher workshops and now I'm teaching students who are studying architecture, art, design.

So I'm very happy because now I'm doing this for nearly 25 years.

And now it is kind of subject, the interest in kites start to reach the level of universities.

So I'm proud that slowly the idea of kites starts to grow.

I have the impression, yes, or the wish, yes.

OK, and my work, the kites I did for the exhibition here in the gallery is the golden ones, golden silver disk kites.