Dear Stranger,
My Name is Enola von der Pahlen. I am 23 years old, live in Germany, and would call myself an artist. I grew up as an only child of hard-working parents in Berlin. My Dad is a gutter cleaner and musician and my Mom is a social worker for family support. They raised me as a free spirit and traveled with me through Europe in our bus every summer when I was little.
After finishing school I studied product design and learned how to be a goldsmith. The last couple of years have been pretty confusing for me. I had visions and opinions about what my life would be like and made decisions based on my ideas. At the end of those steps, nothing felt like the end of a road. Now I am studying free art and it feels right. Looking back I can say that I don't regret any of my decisions. They made me who I am, gave me my skills, and made me as brave as I need to be for an artist's life.
I love to travel, explore lost places, and collect things and materials I find on the way. I had my first exhibition in a little art bar a few years ago and it changed a lot for me. It freed me from feeling the need that something I make has to be useful or pretty. It just needs to have meaning for me.
My work is influenced by exploring materials, crafts, dreams, my emotions, and everyday struggle. I investigate my perception, events that changed or confused me in the past and try to make sense out of the things that I don't understand. Since I was 6 years old I am a migraineur and that illness took a lot of time in my life. I try to explore how that influences my psyche and changes the way I see the world.
As a girl from a working-class family, I value truth and access over everything else in art. My main interest lies in alchemy, history, and music and my media are drawing, object, installation, jewelry, and time-based media. I'm excited to find out what I am like in your imagination.