My body of work is my heart
by Signe Emdal, 2023/2024
Infinite numbers of threads are weaving us together, in a timeless tapestry of lived life, lived spirits, lived dreams and lived family lines.
My future connective threads are the physical result of lived life in togetherness.
The cosmic warp is real.
My delicate structures comes alive in good company. May it be humans, landscapes, horizons, sounds, feelings, animals, stories, music, plants, visions, joy or magical spirits.
This is how I mediate.
My creation of space. My creation of worlds to mediate inside of. For myself. For others. When I give space, information reveals itself. Life changing information.
I mediate with the loom. Past and future meet in the loom window. The loom is the heart where I store memories.
I love the magical unfolding of trust.
When I trust a friend’s love and my friend feels this trust, the love amplifies like raindrops on water and a beautiful flow begins, beyond anything I´ve tried earlier on.
It is always a new love. A new improvised unique energy-merge comes alive, based on love and trust.
This is how I mediate.
I am grateful to own the sensibility to feel the landscape. This brings great power in speaking the words of nature, when entering plant-age.
We feel more in Gaia´s presense.
The emotional body is the doorway to peace, that everybody is looking for.
Our feelings are the gateway to the source of all life.
CV Signe Emdal
B. 1979. Currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark
Independant Artist / Structure designer /Sculptor /Photographer
Represented by Galerie Maria Wettergren - in Paris, France
Member of the Danish Visual Artists (BKF)
Member of the Michelangelo Foundation and the Homo Faber Guide
Weaver at The National Museum of Denmark, Brede Værk 2009- 2012
Work experience at Ole Strange knitting factory in DK 2005-2009
MA in Textile design at Designskolen Kolding DK 2002-2007, specialized in Jacquard knitting techniques & conceptual structures.
BIOGRAPHY
BY MARIA WETTERGREN FOR MY SOLO SHOW IN PARIS 2023
FANTASIA
(Full text, Press the pink button)
Emdal characterizes herself as a textile composer, transforming emotions and ambiences into tangible textile structures, and her works are indeed ethereal and poetic like music. Influenced by nature and textile traditions of the past, yet with a strong futuristic appearance, her Touch works evoke hybrid aesthetics and timeframes, offering widespread associations, such as animal furs, butterflies, ceremonial artifacts and luscious parures. Sensitive and sensual, the wool sculptures vibrate with the slightest air and seem almost alive, like creatures from outer space, or exotic species from the deep-sea - another great inspiration to the artist, besides science fiction and music.
Emdal’s way of working may seem close to the meaning of the Greek word phantasia, usually translated to “imagination”. However, in Greek thought the word retains a connection with the verb phainomai, “I appear”, which refers both to the psychological capacity to receive, interpret, and even produce appearances, as well as to those appearances themselves. Signe (and what a felicitous name!) receives and interprets phenomena, while producing new enigmatic appearances. She is spiritually and intellectually nourished by culturally rich places, 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 and indigenous cultural philosophies and their way of connecting sky and earth through handmade objects, with more than just respect for mother earth.
They saw her as the boss.”
Graduating from the Kolding School of Design in 2007 with an MA in textile design, specialized in Jacquard knitting techniques and conceptual textile structures, Emdal has fifteen years of experience with both handwoven and digital textile art, ranging from fashion textiles to highly complex art tapestries. Although very different from her Touch sculptures, it is interesting to note that her early works reveal the same inspirational sources and working methods, i.e. art history, ancient textiles, cultural and philosophical studies, feminism, interdisciplinarity and spiritual processes.
The sensual, almost animistic feeling that the woven works embody a spiritual presence reaches an unprecedented level in Emdal’s Touch works, developed from 2018 onwards, starting with My Little Icelandic Pony, and followed by Palladio, Infinity Root, Mermaid, Khrysos, Tara 21 and Rosa C, Mother of Fire, Silky Way, Lady Pharaoh, Piccolo Pellicano, Murex 4ever, Fantasia, Maison, Heart of Nebula, Dreams of Gaia.
The Icelandic wool seems to introduce a heightened attention to sensitivity and to textile as a living material in Emdal’s work, and from this point forward, she has primarily unfolded her research through the delicate Icelandic wool, a natural fiber, which according to the artist is able to live, if treated the right way. For Emdal, it is crucial to “…let the fibers breathe and unfold in my hands, while guiding them slowly and protecting the wool, leaving space for the yarn to grow in its own pace. Just like mothers do…”
In order to observe the subtle nuances, a certain distance needs to be maintained. The Touch sculptures are, despite their name, not to be touched, regardless of their irresistible tactility. If they are touched, they are altered in their perfect, frosty appearance, like a finger in candy floss. This paradox creates a sublime frustration, which not only heightens the pleasure of pure contemplation, but also provokes a feeling of awe and protection for the delicate creations or creatures (characteristically, Emdal often names her works like persons or animals, referring to them as she or they).
They are fantasies, chimeras, and mysterious appearances… Please do not touch. Let yourself be touched.
© Image rights: Kristine Funch & Signe Emdal
© Image rights Signe Emdal
© Image rights Signe Emdal
© Image rights Signe Emdal
© Image rights Signe Emdal
© Image rights Signe Emdal
AWARDS
2023 Martha & Paul Rene Gaugain Art Prize 2023, DK
2022 Winner of the price: “Best Contemporary artwork” at PAD LONDON, UK
SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
2024 Statens Kunstfond, Copenhagen, Denmark
2023 Malmö Museum, Malmö, Sweden
SHOWS
2024 GALERIE MARIA WETTERGREN/ TEFAF Maastricht. March 2024.The Netherlands
2023 Soloshow FANTASIA at Galerie Maria Wettergren in Paris: 07.09.23 - 25.11.23