About Signe Emdal

~ My body of work is my heart

Danish visual Artist and Master artisan Signe Emdal (b. 1979) creates Portraits & Original Structures.

Trained as a MA technician in complex Jacquard systems in Denmark (2002-2007), she had early teachings in the poetry of Tibetan Buddism, creation of new formats, worldwide ancient textile traditions, and the principles of trancending historical archives through materials.

“Signe Emdal receives and interprets phenomena, while producing new enigmatic appearances. She examines the role of tactile spacial experiences, softness and kindness, employing materiality to engage, not only with the construct of unusual new sculptural mediums, but also with the spaces within and behind it” ~ Maria Wettergren

Signe´s artworks and formats are the result of her 20 year research in principles, combined by hand to build Original Structures with analogue and digital tools. This part of her practice with building physical foundations for her portraits, is inspired by the Interstellar Medium (ISM) and rooted in the artist's technical hands on experience in tracking, archiving and decoding structures, while building new structural expressions for the future.

Her practice is described as material based & architectual, meaning that materials, crafts techniques and personal life stories of architects and artists, are the initial starting points for her creational processes, as well as her interest in creating supportive frameworks for her inner artist to design the architectual space that is holding the proces. Her practice can be percieved as a Systems Art practice, that is deeply rooted in her personal biography with self-preservation practices, and a life-long journey of exploring sensory skills, creational proces and the window of creation ( aka sensitivity is the super power we are all looking for ).

The artist lives within a constant open-ended planning of frameworks (windows) for her next creational processes. Inside of those creational windows, she finds herself immersed in natural light, studying significant artists, craftspeople and architects of the the past, with the intention of trancending abstract portraits of their artistic essence, with her own original structures. She allows discovery and magic to unfold in her hands, that leads to completely surprisingly results in the “merge” proces.

Signe has an effortlessly way of absorbing and trancending any subject that needs to be portrayed. The proces is intuitive and takes place inside of her creational windows, with only a few guidelines such as a couple of visual images and colours. Inside of the windows, she connects with her sensitive Inner Ear, and goes deep into a kind of meditation (like fx David Lynch, Sonja Ferlov and Utzon).

~

~My body of work is my heart

“I make space to study & create, inside a shower of sunlight & love. My family landscape is like a magic light window of information from lived lives of passionate artists and the people protecting those sensitive spirits, giving them A safe space to thrive 🩵 I am in awe of how highly sensitives like Aalto and Carré, lived passionately to give space & protect Art and the creative essence. Life and work was not separated, their lives was the actual work of art. It softens me to know this. I think this is perhaps the most attractive act a person can prioritize: To create safe spaces for the sensitive creational process, - and I said this before… already in 2009 I had a dream of embodying this architectural thought. Now it feels very real after practicing the idea in action for so many years, of how to make the best possible conditions and architectural structure for my proces. Today this became my main operative system for everything I do” - Signe Emdal

Mediums : Analogue vertical looms, analogue vintage film-cameras, digital knitting machines, digital Looms, patterns, ornament and sketch work, watercolours and stained glass art.

Materials: Wool is at the heart of her practice since 20 years, along with two more recent materials, launching in 2026-2027: glass & vintage photography.

Shows: Signe had numerous solo and group exhibitions, such as the National Gallery of Denmark (2015), Skagen Art Museum (2019), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (2020), Arden Asbæk Gallery (2022), PAD London (2022), Homo Faber Biennale (2022), Tefaf NYC (2023), Galerie Maria Wettergren in Paris (2023), TEFAF Maastricht (2023), Galerie Handwerck (2024), Zona Maco (2026) and Saatchi Gallery London (2026). Full CV here.

Next up: Signe´s solo show at the Aalto Museum: Maison Louis Carré in France (2027).

Awards & Collections: Her works are represented in prestiges private collections in the US and museum collections, such as Malmø Art Museum in Sweden, Skagen Kunstmuseer in Denmark and the collection of the Danish Art Foundation. In 2023, she was awarded the Martha & Paul Rene Gauguin Art prize, and in 2025, the Ole Haslund Art foundation prize. Full CV here.

Locations: Signe works in many locations world wide, with family anchors in Denmark. Movement, timelines and changes of scenery have a deep impact on her site-specific artworks, that aim to offer experiences of empowerment, flexibility and care towards a higher attention for the sensory body of all life.