Artist’s statement

On my work

My work could be best described as mixed media, abstract, collage, inspired by primitive arts and ethnography.
How colors and shapes interact together fascinates me, especially how and why we perceive some compositions as beautiful and harmonious and some not at all.

Basically, every piece of artwork I create strives for harmony and balance of colors and shapes, even if the topic of the work is something else.

Although collage would be my medium of choice most of the time, I do like to work with fabrics, sewing dolls and abstract pieces. The goal here is to achieve harmony and balance as well.
It’s a very intuitive process where I put together the pieces to create compositions that make me happy.
I do like to include some beads, paper beads, found ribbons, objects, and crocheted elements in the fabric artwork.

I try to use recycled material at all times, upcycling old books, magazines, posters, clothes, etc. I rarely buy new supplies, except maybe for paper or canvas when I need them. I also use discarded kids’ drawings, tickets, receipts, and all kinds of junk ephemera, as well as handpainted papers.

One way to combine my love for fabrics with my collage work is to make soft fabric cover art journals. Usually, I make 1-2 a year for myself and a couple more for friends or people who would like to purchase one.
The journals are made of old found papers, paper bags, old books, magazines… The cover is sewn out of fabric scraps or fused plastic, that I make by fusing together old plastic bags and packaging.
I like to have all kinds of different papers and textures in a journal and I never journal in a “linear” way in them, meaning that I will pick pages that appeal to me at that moment and will go back to some pages later to remake them, add or overpaint something.
I also strive to make harmonious typographic compositions when writing titles or quotes.

On why I create

Making art is a need for me as is food and water, oxygen, or physical activity. When I hadn’t realized it yet, I used to self-sabotage by pretending that I didn’t have enough time for art (I still sometimes do it, but I try really hard not to) and let all kinds of activities get in the way. The truth is, when I function like this, I am not happy. The longer I am avoiding the art practice, the more I feel that I’m losing touch with a very important part of myself that needs a lot of care and attention. That care, that attention is art.
So if I am not able to make art for longer periods of time I get blocked in other areas of my life too, the energy stops flowing, I can’t come up with new thoughts or ideas, become irritable and depressed.
Here lies a true challenge for me, as it is really easy to get caught up in the routine, with two kids and a full-time job, a household to run, and lots of other activities and hobbies.
So sometimes it happens that instead of sitting down to make something, I will wander around the house and find a million things I need to do before I allow myself to make art. I still need to find out how to prioritize it and create on a more regular basis.
It was particularly hard when the children were smaller, but now that they are growing up and become more autonomous, it gets a little bit easier to find time.

I think what being an artist is for me, it brings me in balance, in harmony with myself and with the world. Making art offers me time and space to process things that I have experienced and develop new ideas, but also makes it possible to escape the everyday routine and have some fun.

There is also some kind of almost magic, “waking up the unconscious” that happens when I create, which leads to better results in my work and life, and more ideas in other domains. It makes me realize it’s all related, and art holds it all together for me, making my life richer and more complete.
This is an important process that allows me to show up every day, and help other people, give something to the world, be useful, and contribute to making this planet a better place.

On topics that interest me and why

The perception of beauty and harmony. For me it’s a very satisfying moment in the creation process, when I find the right composition or the perfect color match. The feeling that you just made an eye candy is really a dopamine kick, even if it’s purely subjective and someone else might find it a total crap.

The random stuff. How different things can fit one picture being very different from each other and still forming a unity. My work is a reflection of the world as I see and tweak it, randomly putting together things that don’t fit, and making the best out of them. Like in real life, we always should strive to make the best of what we have.

Being stuck and finding your way out. I have been struggling with depression and anxiety all of my life, only in the past few years slowly learning how to navigate it without medication and find joy and pleasure in life resisting making myself feel depressed. For me, feeling miserable means being stuck, and I am trying to work through it every day, some days more successfully than others.
My collages often reflect that battle through cut and/or torn pieces of paper that are reassembled in new ways, painted over, and then cut and reassembled again. Sometimes I will repeat the process several times until I am happy with the result.

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