"Judith with the Key" Drawing

About Anna Maria Heinreich , alias AMH

STATEMENT
My work as costume designer is related to human beings and their transformation. During my theatre career, I have always attached great importance to expressing and enhancing the personality of the characters through the costumes/clothes
When drawing costume sketches for the atelier, I pay a particular attention to the characters’ attitude showing their emotions.
With my ceramics, I enjoy expressing myself with an ancient and living material as clay in which I put my passion for art and beauty. My ceramic figures and cases express simplicity and immediacy and they do not fear the failures of the handmade process, still they enhance the spontaneous and capture a poetic mood.
My motto is: let’s play with imagination and imperfection.

BIOGRAPHY
I was born in Austria, Vienna.
Ever since my childhood I have been passionate about creating dresses for puppets and I engaged myself to make my costumes for the school theatre. Following that passion, I studied fashion and costume design.
After my education in Vienna I moved to Paris, the “town of fashion”, where I improved my French studying literature and art and attending opera and theatre performances even more often until I clearly and definitely decided that I wanted to become a costume designer. Due to the romantic relationship with my would-be husband I moved to Italy. I was exultant about the great opportunities offered to me by the Italian remarkable tailors and craftsmen. I discovered the immense artistic heritage of Italy, the textile and fashion sectors of the “made in Italy”. It was a priceless training period.
I started to work in Rome, as costume assistant and some years later as costume designer, I created costumes for most of the Italian theatres, in the course of which I acquired deep knowledge of this country where I am still inspired by the quality of light and art surrounding me in my daily life. I’m also employed in international theatre productions, as a costume designer, sharing for more than 20 years the creation of shows with one of the greatest theatre directors, Peter Stein.
Currently, I feel the need to employ part of my time in producing clay-manufactured goods, since it delights me to express myself, I can communicate another great passion and I can express my self-perception, linking the actual world to a mythological and ancestral universe.