From right: Finale, silk composition, 2023, Interior, Exterior, silk compositions 2023, Portal, silk/ metal composition, 2023
Shields, I, silk composition, 2023
Shields, II, silk composition, 2023
Magical thinking I-V, textile sculptures in silk, paper, hair and steel, 2023
Magical thinking, I, textile sculpture in silk, paper, hair and steel, 2023
Magical thinking, III, textile sculpture in silk, paper, hair and steel, 2023
Magical thinking, IV, textile sculpture in silk, paper, hair and steel, 2023
Magical thinking, II, textile sculpture in silk, paper, hair and steel, 2023
From right: Charm I, II, III, textile sculptures in silk and steel, 2021, Cocoon, stretched, textile sculpture in silk and steel, 2023, Remembrance, silk composition, 2021, Shields, I, silk composition, 2023
Cocoon, stretched, textile sculpture in silk and steel, 2023
Cocoon, patience, textile sculpture in silk/ copper, 2023
From right: Interior, silk composition, 2023, Cocoon, stretched, textile sculpture in silk and steel, 2023, Remembrance, silk composition, 2021, Solitude, sculpture in HDPE-mesh, 2023
Circuit, sculpture in HDPE-mesh, 2023
From right: Solitude, sculpture in HDPE-mesh, 2023, Being, red I, II, III, textile sculptures in silk, Interior, Exterior, silk compositions, 2023
From right: Balance, textile sculpture, oil on silk, steel, 2023, Capsule, textile sculpture, oil on silk, HDPE-mesh, steel, 2023, Passage, textile sculpture, oil on silk, steel, 2023, Observer, textile sculpture, oil om silk, steel, 2023, Moonbeing, textile sculpture, oil om silk, steel, 2023
Capsule, textile sculpture, oil on silk, HDPE-mesh, steel, 2023
Passage, textile sculpture, oil on silk, steel, 2023
Observer, textile sculpture, oil on silk, steel, 2023
From right: Unfold, silk composition, 2023, Balance, textile sculpture, oil on silk, steel, 2023, Capsule, textile sculpture, oil on silk, HDPE-mesh, steel, 2023, Passage, textile sculpture, oil on silk, steel, 2023, Observer, textile sculpture, oil om silk, steel, 2023, Rise me, textile sculpture, silk, steel, 2021,
Moonbeing, textile sculpture, oil om silk, steel, 2023
Cocoon, eclipse, sculpture in HDPE-mesh and steel, 2023
From right: Rise me, textile sculpture in silk and steel, 2021, Promise, silk composition, 2023, Cocoon, eclipse, sculpture in HDPE-mesh and steel, 2023,
Fragments of a tree, textile sculpture in jute, 2023
Fragments of a tree, textile sculpture in jute, 2023
From right: Being, red, I, II, III, textile sculptures in silk, 2023, Finale, silk composition, 2023, Portal, silk/ metal composition, 2023
The Art of Magical Thinking
Your exhibition is called Magical Thinking. What is your own relationship to magical thinking?
That's how my thinking system works, for better or for worse. It is a little dysfunctional to think that you can influence events through actions. Children engage in that, it´s something you are supposed to put aside as an adult to become a more enlightened being. But the magical thinking lies as a filter for my entire reality. I have always engaged in the act of encapsuling moment. In my head, I have a large index of frozen moments that, already when they happened, I decided to save. I pondered a lot about existential things even as a small child. There has always been a fear of impermanence in me. Encapsulating moments is, I suppose, a way of nailing down time. Like pinning a butterfly to a piece of cardboard to save that brief moment of life. In the exhibition, the theme is visible in my silk cocoons, into which I have sewn notes with secret wishes. That “cocoon-concept” is something I've dealt with for a long time, in different forms. Vows and spells written on rolls of paper, sealed with my hair. The cocoons offer a projection surface – what is my sealed desire?
What does your process look like in concrete terms? How do you start a work/piece?
My process is organic and intuitive. The piece is shaped in my hands. I often think that the sculptures should grow into their own organisms, with their own will and temperament. Something that I need to submit to. I have an initial thought where I give the work a starting point. It can be the material, the beginning of a shape, a color. It becomes like a a first chord in a piece that I then get to follow and see what intention and what temperament it has, in order to then help the creation come into being what it wants to be. My feeling is that I almost become an instrument for the work. A doula perhaps? I don't have a rule for how it should look between point A and point B. I don't know beforehand how it is going to take shape. I don't draw anything before, I shape everything with my hands while working. The seams that flow through the pieces are elastic, never straight. More like blood veins or the lines of a tree, living lines. The form that I have in my head and the form that arises and that I cannot always predict, also work in interaction. Textile is exciting if I compare it to bronze or plaster, they represent a finished form. But my textile sculptures are transformative. They can become something new depending on how you hang them. One can find different movements in them. They have a large amount of inherent capabilities.
What materials are you working with in this exhibition?
Partly silk, which I have worked with for a long time. I color it myself, mixing pigments to achieve the exact shades I'm after. Those works are sculptural paintings, I paint with oil paint on the silk. I think of painting as a kind of lighting where thin layers of white make the form emerge from the blackness. I also work in burlap, because there is an earthy materiality in it. How we are anchored in the earth and time. I have been inspired by the olive tree on Placa Cort, it is six hundred years old. It is fascinating to get lost in its labyrinths. What caused the twist on the trunk to grow to these proportions? I have tried to find a way to translate the tree into my language and created fragments of my own tree inside the gallery in burlap.
The work is in three parts and is entitled "Fragments of a tree". I also work with the shadows on the walls. What exists but cannot be touched. Then I found this black plastic material that made me think of fishing nets, sun protection for plants, packaging.
There are certain shapes that recur in your art. Like the spiral shape, trilobite, uterus, womb...what do you think about it?
In many ways, my works are about origins, about motherhood. The cocoons I made may bring to mind a womb. The original, archaic. My own placenta from when I gave birth to my children really grabbed me, it really does look like an absolutely amazing tree! Imagine that the body can produce an extra organ… You understand why the placenta is called the tree of life. The nerve fibers look just like the roots down into the soil. It is like a reminder that everything belongs together, everything is plant power. But the motherhood I dealt with is not only the private but the universal. We humans as a creation of the whole. To be one us in one body. The interlinking of generations, the umbilical cord.... We pilot life on. There is a loss of control in it that is both terrifying and comforting. The cupped shape of a trilobite, is something that feels both ancient and futuristic. It signals both vulnerability and protection. How I feel about it is connected to how I feel about my children, there are all possibilities there, something that is strong and vulnerable and private. The shield which is an armor that covers its inside, just like the pupa. And the spiral form also reappears in my works. It could be a shell. The winding road. The narrow passages. The inexorability of everything going on, with or without us.
Your mother was a textile artist, how has that influenced your artistry?
I am very influenced by my mother. To grow up between looms, with sewing machines and fabrics close at hand all the time. I can still remember every scrap of fabric that was kept in my mothers baskets; the structures, the colors, the materials, the feeling, the smells. The sensations they gave me are imprinted in me. She had three children, we all climbed the warp of the loom. To me it was playful, to create alongside of her, and it is an approach that I have been able to maintain, even though I have refined my technique over the years. I have always connected sewing with care. The fact that you choose to spend so much time on something. The time you weave in, sew into every little stitch. The act of love in that. What I do is really let childhood spread out before me, with my own language. My thoughts find outlet when my hands are busy. I think with my hands.
I think of something I read, like“If you don't know where you are going, close your eyes and listen very carefully. Follow the invisible thread laid out before your feet”.
To create is to seek the unknown, and I understand the unknown a little more by giving it a form or an expression. I intuitively search for my sources with my hands and listen. When I spend time doing this, it also becomes a deepening, a meditation in approaching, understanding and marveling at, for example, the lines of a being or a tree.
This was a dialogue between Artist Diana Orving and Author Sara Paborn
Portrait with Being, red, I, II, III, textile sculptures in silk, 2023
All photos by Grimalt De Blanche