Biographie
Eva-Maria Horstick is an unlikely person. She won't live forever as a woman, but she will as an artists. Her inexhaustible energy, her insatiable curiosity and the self-evident privilege of expressing herself without being asked about anything and everything makes her an exceptional representative of the international photographic art scene.
Eva-Maria Horstick received her first camera on her tenth birthday. She feels life every moment, so with her smal Agfa, she documented life around. The nature of the Münsterland as well as her trips to Holland and Paris, which she mostly did by hitchhiking. At the age of 19 she moved out and took an apartment in Coesfeld, near her native town of Gescher, where Eva-Maria Horstick was born on February 3rd, under the sign of Aquarius.
Between 1974 and 1976 she trained as a photo laboratory assistant in a renowned advertising studio and decided to integrate photography firmly into her life. She set up a small photo lab in the basement of her apartment and made her own prints. However, water damage in 1987 destroyed her entire early work. From 1980 to 1989, Eva-Maria Horstick worked as a model for the Paris label Neyret, among others, and was thus able to set up her own company. In 1984 her son Marius was born in Münster. At that time she had already successfully set up a fashion show agency and staged "catwalks" with theater and show elements.
In 1990 she met Gerhard Sch., a future chief police officer, with whom she fell in love, finally marrying him in 1994. The marriage lasted until 2016. At first they shared a flat with the black singer Sheila G. and the well-known philosopher Dr. Thomas Druyen. Due to her husband's profession, the couple was placed under a ban on information, which meant that Eva-Maria Horstick could no longer be reached freely and thus lost many of her customers. But undeterred, she continued with her art. In 1999 she created an elaborate body painting for the opening of Cologne's Coloneum, a PR photographer documented her work and sold the pictures to the Cologne Express without even mentioning her name.
In 1999 a collaboration with Chris Seidler, a well-known artist from the "Revier" (district) followed, and the design of further photo projects. In the music scene, she photographed numerous artists and designed, among other things, record covers for Wigald Boning. For the lead guitarist Steffi Stephan from Udo Lindenberg's panic orchestra, she photographed more than 650 people in one night as part of a promotion, which was her last commissioned work because she never wanted to expose herself to such an amount of energy again. From now on, Eva-Maria Horstick worked exclusively as a photo artist on her own commission and began studying Communication design at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences, which she successfully completed in 2002.
Large-format series on house walls, "Out of nowhere of dreams", other body painting campaigns, "Lost Places", art in the Revier, and works on breast cancer, human trafficking and sex work followed, exhibited many times, including in the Dortmund Hoesch Museum and the Dortmund Art Association, where she created an installation with mannequins for the 2006 World Cup. A year earlier she met the artist couple Christo in New York's Central Park, a long-term exchange about art and life followed, about ten years later Eva-Maria Horstick then also exhibited together with Yoko Ono on the subject of water.
The spirits that have haunted the 20th and 21st centuries lie hidden in her art. Til today. And in our time, which relies so much on repression, Eva-Maria Horstick holds up the mirror to us and confronts us with her messages, sometimes encrypted, sometimes obvious, but always with a mixture of self-confidence and self-mockery, incomprehensible for all those who find it convenient to label artists. Nevertheless, Eva-Maria Horstick's work has method, even if she is not a propagandist. Her photos give a clear understanding of what constitutes art and that Eva-Maria Horstick uses the camera in such a memorable way that nothing escapes her, neither the visible nor the invisible. The woman behind the viewfinder of our rampant civilisation expresses a revelation in her own translation.
Eva-Maria Horstick's art gives meaning to the sad fragility of existence, it is like a requiem for our world, which falters towards the end and faces the truth one last time. Until the next motif, which Eva-Maria Horstick will first feel and then immortalize with her camera. Mostly analogue with Leica models or medium format cameras. Photography at the highest level, without retouching, in order to do justice to the now familiar philosophy of the moment; the artist's most important tool, besides her soul, is her energy.
Between 2005 and 2007 the series "Babaism" was created - she staged mannequins and barbies to draw attention to the so-called ideal of beauty in our society and to question cosmetic surgery. Basically, it is the energetic motifs, mysterious images that want to make you think, are crazy different and serve freedom that reflect the work of Eva-Maria Horstick. But the beauty of the female body is also close to her. She took numerous erotic photos and worked for the men's magazine Penthouse, among others. Eva-Maria Horstick knows no comfort zone, her mantra is to constantly reinvent herself.
However, Eva-Maria Horstick often found it unnecessary to talk to the press, for example in her past organizing fashion shows. Their shows were appreciated and praised by the audience with ovations anyway. She basically made her music compilations and choreographies herself, but unfortunately she often found her concepts and associated slogans stolen. One of them was called "all about Eve." Countless times she discovered her copied ideas in mainstream advertising because it lacked the cheek and irony that Eva-Maria Horstick always distinguished. But sometimes she turned her back on Germany for long stretches.
Numerous stays abroad followed between 1990 and 2018, for example in Israel and in New York, USA, where her son Marius studied acting at the world-famous Lee Strasberg Institute. Friendships with Johannes Wasmuth from the Art Museum Rolandseck, the German actress Marianne Hoppe and others followed. Her series "Chess on Location" was created in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Austria, France and Scotland, among other places. In 2002 she traveled to Kosovo several times to do reports against human trafficking and forced prostitution. She lived there with her husband and a US marine in a flat. Three of her works were presented in 87 exhibitions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by the non-governmental organization Terre des Femmes. But the Ruhr area too always remained part of her work setting. Various series of works bear witness to this. Like the series "Unretouched - families in the district, daughters of the district" and the series "Aschenpüttel- 5 min. For a girl of tomorrow!"
In 2004 Eva-Maria Horstick had the dream of leaving the misery of reportage and creating something completely new. This is how her series "Photo meets Manga" came about, which she worked on for several years. This resulted in 36 works that have so far been exhibited in New York City, Tokyo, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Brussels, Bonn and Dortmund. With the manga artist Tania Schaubhut - who works as a tattoo artist - she created a new perspective on her art. The continuation of her art is in the works every day and promises not to be repeated.
Text Sönke C. Weiss, Paris
Opinion 2022
Dear Eva.We just received your wonderful book Yesterday and are absolutely in love with it!It is a fantastic production, and every page reveals a new treasure! Congratulationson such a successful product!Sylvia especially enjoyed all of the German text, and I am still reading the English!
We thank you very, very much for such a thoughtful gift, and assure you that it will beour special Coffee Table book from now on for all of our guests to enjoy too!
Best regards, and we hope you are enjoying this Holiday!
Jack and Sylvia, Berlin