I am not a writer. So, if you want to read a well written artsy sounding text about my artistic approach, I encourage you to read this.
A professionally written text I was gifted as my graduation present from the Frank Mohr Institute where I did my Masters in Fine Arts.
But if that is not what you want, then you should know that I write about my work the same way that I do my work. And my whole artistic practice is about embracing a childlike simplicity.
The textile work I do is for the vast majority easy on a technical level, embracing big clumsy stitches and the not straight at all lines that children make when you first give them a needle and thread.
My work is colorful and playful. And at the core what I really want to achieve with it is to make people happy. My most important metric for measuring a successful artwork is asking myself if kid me would enjoy it. And throughout the entire creation process I am actively in collaboration with my childhood self by simply being playful and seeing what happens.
For the first few years at art school, I was convinced my calling lay in abstract painting, with a focus on color. And had things gone differently I might be a painter today, but my artistic education was disrupted by the covid- lockdowns which created a situation where I was able to rediscover my childhood passion for textile work and start up my mindset of collaborating with my inner child. But that painting background is still informing my work in a lot of ways today. I even like to talk about my works as abstract paintings that have completely divorced themselves from the 2-dimensional canvas in some contexts.
So now, I have a deep obsession with strings, and its vibrant colors, and its tactile sensations and the way it seems to knot itself up as soon as you look away from it.
I have drawn from that obsession over the last few years of my artistic education and even pursued it in unexpected directions. I did my masters in a course with a focus on merging modern technologies with art. Where I explored the possibilities of motors and creating moving textile pieces. Really highlighting that childish believe that string does indeed move when you look away from it. Which has cumulated in my “The Tubes” installation series which are an ever evolving an ongoing analysis of string and its movements through magnification.
And although motors and touch do not mix well. I am also exploring the tactility of my medium. Most notably in the “Color Cloud” installation which created an entire alternate reality of string that you can experience with your whole body.
And next to those physical properties of sting I am also exploring the historical and communal backgrounds of textile work. Which expresses itself in my practice through working with materials donated form the communities of where my art pieces are meant to go. Mostly this consists of old clothing, that still hold the memories of the people that owned them even once they are unrecognizably transformed in my installations.
And furthermore, I explore the historical practice of communal textile working and learning from each other by giving workshops. I invite anyone interested to participate in the making of my installations. The fact that I have esthetically chosen to embrace a technical simplicity actually makes this very approachable, even to people who’ve never held a needle at all. I can teach anyone the basics needed for participation within half an hour and therefore quickly get them exercising their own creative spark.
And through inviting that participation, things happen that would otherwise not have happened. There are other movements in my Tubes when I install them with new people and there is new color combinations happening all the time. Most notably my workshops have opened up the existence of green in my works. A color which I instinctively gravitated away from as a child and that habit translates into my works a lot because of that collaboration with my inner child. But through receiving donated materials and then using them together with others, green has found spots here and there in my work. Which really goes to show how these works are drifting away from being mine to being communal works of art.