FANTASIA

~ Solo Show at Galerie Maria Wettergren

~ 07.09.23 - 25.11.23

~ Works on show:

Silky Way, Fantasia, Palladio, Mother of Fire, Piccolo Pellicano, Infinity Root & Murex 4ever

~ Touch & Loop tech

~ Download or see my FANTASIA BOOK

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About FANTASIA ( words by Galerie Maria Wettergren ):

FANTASIA, Signe Emdal’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Maria Wettergren, appears as a fluid stream of works and places: From Casa Balandra (Mallorca) to Rome over Copenhagen and Skagen in Denmark, the Danish textile artist has been working on a new family of textile sculptures, handwoven in Icelandic wool.

Using her signature fusion technique, TOUCH, based on a merge of a carpet knot technique and a special brushing made by the artist, Emdal delicately weaves the wool fibers into subtle layers of fur-like poetry.

Emdal characterizes herself as a textile composer, transforming emotions and ambiances into tangible textile structures, and her works are ethereal and poetical like music.

Inspired by textile traditions of the past, yet with a strong futuristic appearance, Emdal’s wool sculptures evoke hybrid aesthetics and timeframes with widespread associations, such as animal furs, butter flies, ceremonial artefacts and luscious parures. Delicate, sensitive and seductive, the sculptures vibrate with the slightest air vibration and seem alive, like creatures from outer space, or like exotic species from the deep sea, equally a great inspiration to Emdal, besides science fiction and music.

Every month since the beginning of 2023, Emdal has been moving to a new location and residency with her travel loom to study ancient textile cultures: The Majorcan Ikat tradition has thus been a great source of inspiration for her work, Mother of Fire, with its fiery, flaming pattern of blue and orange colors, whereas the Egyptian and Coptic textile heritages have profoundly influenced Silky Way as well as Murex 4ever with their purple nuances, as a symbol of wealth and cultural richness. Both the Ikat weaving and the Coptic textile tradition point towards the Silk Road, with its abundance of exchange in terms of textiles, precious items and knowledge.

Emdal’s Silky Way is created in a symbiotic flow with this ancient universal knowledge, and in the words of the artist... “Information reveals itself as I create with my hands, like threads that point back and forward in time in a shared abundant stream of colors. A Silky Way.”

More Scandinavian influences are present in Piccolo Pellicano, a tribute to the small Danish marine snail, “A Pelicans Foot”, inspired by the shells on the beach, glistening in the sun, coming up and out of the deep water in Skagen, the most Nordic point of Denmark. Emdal’s way of working seems close to the meaning of the Greek word phantasia, which is usually translated as imagination. However, in Greek thought the word always retains a connection with the verb phainomai, “I appear”, which refers both to the psychological capacit y to receive, interpret, and even produce appearances and to those appearances themselves. Emdal receives and interprets phenomena, while she produces new enigmatic appearances.

Like a nomad, she is spiritually and intellectually nourished by the cultural history of a place, and she considers the FANTASIA exhibition as a long line of connective past and future threads, where movement and changes of scenery have had a great impact on her and her artworks.

These cultures are not only studied, they are digested and absorbed through an intimate, spiritual process, turned towards nature and the universe. In the words of the artist: “I am inspired by ancient & indigenous cultural philosophies and their way of connecting sky & earth through handmade objects, with more than just respect for mother earth. They saw her as the boss.”

Besides Emdal’s new TOUCH sculptures, two of her earlier, seminal works will be presented, Roots of Infinity and Palladio, as well as a small selection of her analogous photographic works, that she made while weaving her sculptures - her places of creation.

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Photographic work and sculptures from the show, press here