FÜR DEUTSCH BITTE RUNTERSCROLLEN

I would like to invite you to the upcoming OPEN STUDIOS (or SOS - Save Our Studios) event, on September 5 & 6, taking place not just at my studio location but in almost all buildings that house studio spaces co-funded by the Senate through the BBK Atelierbüro. Organised by the “Bündnis für geförderte Ateliers”, the main purpose of the event is to draw attention to the places of artistic production that will soon be lost due to the funding cuts. My studio lease ends in August 2027 and is not expected to be extended, meaning it looks as though I will lose my studio space next year.
In regards to the upcoming elections in Berlin, this joint event may, hopefully, serve as a reminder of the unparalleled diversity of art production, its importance as a cultural center, and as a call to consider the consequences of the election for the future of art and artists in this city.

Despite the serious framing, I promise this will be a fun event. I am clearing out my storage and will present some never-before-shown studies, sketches, little sculptures, rare and leftover prints, the very last bit of my Eau de Parfum “Object Petit A,” a few unique pieces of clothing I made, and of course there will be drinks and snacks and chats on the rooftop terrace. Please come and say Hi and bring your friends, child, mother, dog, cat, hamster, and perhaps some cash.

Then, on October 1st opens book & art ‘26 at Artbooks Store in Cologne, for which I have made a new edition of 10 unique works on velvet, to go alongside 10 copies of my monograph Now It’s Dark. 5 of the 10 pieces will be available at Artbooks Store in Cologne, and the other 5 will be available at DCV, starting at the same time. Here is a sneak peek of number 6 (available at Artbooks in Cologne starting October 1st):

The 10 works on velvet all share the same sublimation print: a photograph I took in 2023 from inside the car while crossing the bridge from Oakland to San Francisco. As you may know, San Francisco is a place of memory that I am still deeply connected with, mostly through close friends that live there. On top of the prints I have made individual drawings of visual fragments from my daily life, connecting two places of personal memory, making each version a unique piece of memorabilia itself.

Something about making limited editions and series feels joyful, hopeful and pleasant. Focusing my attention on a small, confined, comprehensible project amidst the somewhat chaotic state of the world makes sense to me right now. In it, I find resilience in the form of spite, and by way of challenging myself to look at where I don’t like to look, and to go where I don’t let myself go.

After the Open Studios and the books & art launch, respectively, I will take some much-needed time off from Berlin (& reality), and embark on two trips that I honestly feel too guilty about to call them vacations. Guilty, because do I really deserve to rest, let alone go on holiday? Have I worked hard enough, long enough, successfully enough? Have I burned myself to the ground yet? Coincidentally, I am currently unable to walk at all, after I pushed myself to go for a run while my feet were still in pain from an earlier one. When I recently told a close friend about feeling guilty for taking time off, he smiled at me and said: “And that’s why you’re in therapy.” (You know, I love you, M.) So I decided to be excited, not anxious, about getting some distance, novelty, and, also, some rest.

DEUTSCH

Ich möchte euch herzlich zu den bevorstehenden OPEN STUDIOS (oder SOS – Save Our Studios) am 5. und 6. September einladen, die nicht nur in meinem Atelier, sondern in fast allen Gebäuden stattfindet, in denen sich vom Senat über das BBK-Atelierbüro mitfinanzierte Atelierräume befinden. Die vom „Bündnis für geförderte Ateliers“ organisierte Veranstaltung hat vor allem zum Ziel, die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Orte des künstlerischen Schaffens zu lenken, die aufgrund der Förderkürzungen bald verloren gehen werden. Mein Ateliermietvertrag läuft im August 2027 aus und wird voraussichtlich nicht verlängert, was bedeutet, dass ich mein Atelier wohl schon nächstes Jahr verlieren werde.
Im Hinblick auf die bevorstehenden Wahlen in Berlin mag diese gemeinsame Veranstaltung hoffentlich als Erinnerung an die beispiellose Vielfalt des künstlerischen Schaffens und dessen Bedeutung als kulturelles Zentrum dienen, und als Aufruf, die Folgen der Wahl für die Zukunft der Kunst und der Künstler:innen in dieser Stadt zu bedenken.

Trotz des ernsten Anlasses verspreche ich euch, dass es eine unterhaltsame Veranstaltung wird. Ich räume gerade meinen Lagerraum auf und werde einige bisher unveröffentlichte Studien, Skizzen, kleine Skulpturen, seltene und übrig gebliebene Drucke, den allerletzten Rest meines Eau de Parfum „Object Petit A“ sowie ein paar einzigartige Kleidungsstücke, die ich selbst genäht habe, präsentieren. Und natürlich gibt es auf der Dachterrasse Getränke, Snacks und angeregte Gespräche. Kommt doch vorbei, sagt Hallo und bringt eure Freunde, euer Kind, eure Mutter, euren Hund, eure Katze, euren Hamster und vielleicht auch etwas Bargeld mit.

Am 1. Oktober eröffnet dann die Ausstellung book & art ‘26 im Artbooks Store in Köln, für die ich eine neue Auflage von 10 Unikaten auf Samt angefertigt habe, die 10 Exemplare meiner Monografie Now It’s Dark ergänzen. 5 der 10 Werke werden im Artbooks Store in Köln erhältlich sein, die anderen 5 ab demselben Zeitpunkt bei DCV. Oben ist ein kleiner Vorgeschmack auf Nummer 6 (ab dem 1. Oktober im Artbooks Store in Köln erhältlich).

Die 10 Arbeiten auf Samt teilen alle denselben Sublimationsdruck: ein Foto, das ich 2023 aus dem Auto heraus aufgenommen habe, als ich die Brücke von Oakland nach San Francisco überquerte. Wie ihr vielleicht wisst, ist San Francisco ein Ort der Erinnerung, mit dem ich nach wie vor tief verbunden bin, vor allem durch enge Freunde, die dort leben. Auf die Drucke habe ich unterschiedliche Fragmente aus meinem Alltag gezeichnet und sozusagen zwei Orte persönlicher Erinnerung miteinander verbunden, so wird jede Version selbst zu einem einzigartigen Erinnerungsstück.

Das Schaffen von limitierten Auflagen und Serien hat für mich etwas Freudiges, Hoffnungsvolles und Angenehmes. Meine Aufmerksamkeit auf ein kleines, begrenztes, überschaubares Projekt zu richten, inmitten des etwas chaotischen Zustands der Welt, macht für mich gerade jetzt Sinn. Darin finde ich auch Widerstandskraft in Form von Trotz, indem ich mich selbst herausfordere, dorthin zu schauen, wohin ich nicht gerne schaue, und dorthin zu gehen, wohin ich mich eigentlich nicht gehen lasse.

Nach den Open Studios bzw. der Buch- und Kunstpräsentation werde ich mir eine dringend benötigte Auszeit von Berlin (und der Realität) gönnen und zwei Reisen unternehmen, bei denen ich ehrlich gesagt ein schlechtes Gewissen habe, sie als Urlaub zu bezeichnen. Ein schlechtes Gewissen, weil ich mich frage: Habe ich es wirklich verdient, mich auszuruhen, geschweige denn in den Urlaub zu fahren? Habe ich hart genug, lange genug, erfolgreich genug gearbeitet? Habe ich mich schon völlig verausgabt? Zufälligerweise kann ich derzeit überhaupt nicht laufen, nachdem ich mich zu einem Lauf gezwungen habe, obwohl meine Füße noch von einem früheren schmerzten. Als ich kürzlich einem engen Freund erzählte, dass ich mich schuldig fühle, mir eine Auszeit zu gönnen, lächelte er mich an und sagte: „Und genau deshalb bist du in Therapie.“ Also habe ich beschlossen, mich darauf zu freuen, statt mir Sorgen zu machen, etwas Abstand zu gewinnen, Neues zu erleben und auch etwas Ruhe zu finden.

What feels counterintuitive sometimes brings the desired success. For example, when you add yet another activity to your daily schedule, even though the week is already packed and it seems impossible to find enough time for sleep, meals and other basic necessities alongside your …

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Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for the opening of Inscape at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler last week. If you could not make it but would like to see the show, it is on view until August 1st. I am happy to meet you at the gallery for a personal tour, please message me with a preferred date and time.

୨ৎ

Vielen Dank an alle, die letzte Woche zur Eröffnung von Inscape bei Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler gekommen sind. Falls ihr nicht dabei sein konntet, die Ausstellung aber gerne besuchen möchtet, sie ist noch bis zum 1. August zu sehen. Gerne treffe ich mich mit euch in der Galerie zu einer persönlichen Führung, schreibt mir bitte eine Nachricht mit eurem Wunschtermin und der gewünschten Uhrzeit.

Bis bald .ᐟ

(FÜR DIE DEUTSCHE VERSION BITTE NACH UNTEN SCROLLEN .ᐟ)

Some of my works (sneak peek below) will be shown as part of the upcoming group exhibition Inscape at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler Berlin, alongside pieces by seven other wonderful artists. I hope to see a few friendly faces at the opening on Thursday, July 2nd, from 5 — 8 p.m., or else feel free to message me and we can meet for a walk-through some other time.

Inscape
3 July — 1 August 2026
Opening Thursday, 2 July, 5 — 8 p.m.

Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler
Regina-Jonas-Straße 41 / 43
10999 Berlin

DEUTSCH

Einige meiner Arbeiten (kleiner Vorgeschmack oben) werden im Rahmen der bevorstehenden Gruppenausstellung Inscape bei Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler in Berlin gezeigt, zusammen mit Werken von sieben weiteren großartigen Künstlerinnen. Ich hoffe, bei der Eröffnung am Donnerstag, dem 2. Juli, von 17 bis 20 Uhr ein paar bekannte Gesichter zu sehen. Ansonsten könnt ihr mir gerne eine Nachricht schicken, dann können wir uns zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt für eine gemeinsame Tour durch die Ausstellung verabreden.

♥︎

Despite my intention to organise these posts into a consistent format, here are a few random, hopefully easily digestible thoughts from the past weeks.

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The upcoming summer solstice draws my attention to the fact that half of the year is over, sparking interest in the act of taking stock. What were some major themes, events, dominant feelings? I’m naturally inclined to list things and group them into successes and failures (double Capricorn here), but I’d much rather look at what has transformed, worsened and then healed. What should be kept, what discarded? Personally, I have felt both like a complete beginner and an old, sometimes bitter, soul in this first half of 2026, oscillating between days where I felt struck down by the recurrence of the same fundamental problem I have been tackling for what feels like decades, and times which were filled with the kind of youthful enthusiasm that borders on wishful thinking and fakes naiveté to legitimise risk-taking and other bold moves. Anyway, when looking back I can identify a few things I may want to have or do more of going into 2026’s second half. Perhaps you can think of some yourself, and if we run into each other anytime soon, let’s share them. Mine all have to do with allowing myself joy; I know, a radical concept!

୨ৎ

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(Für die deutsche Version hier klicken)

There’s a line from a poem by Rabindranath Tagore that I love:

The arrow thinks it is free, for it moves, and the bow is bound, for it is still. The bow says to the arrow, “Your freedom depends on me.”

I have been …

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If my previous posts haven’t already hinted at my acute millennialism, here’s one: I recently watched the trailer for the new—and apparently final—“Jackass” movie. Under no circumstances will I watch the movie, however, the trailer did make me laugh, and it did make me nostalgic for the early 2000s, for MTV and music television, for my teenage years without smartphones and social media.

As a professional reminiscer (aka sentimental nostalgic) I am prone to jump on any chance for a throwback, driven by a strong curiosity not necessarily towards the memorabilia itself, but towards the—to me endlessly fascinating—neurological process behind it: remembering feeling a certain way at a particular moment in time, while simultaneously feeling a certain way about remembering it now, in this very moment, which is, most probably, wildly different; it is a kind of bizarre mental state. There are these two emotional trains on tracks that run parallel to each other in the same direction, separate but concerned with the same thing. The separation opens up a strange space which can be filled with ambivalence and confusion, but also imagination and fantasy, because memory is flowy and fragmentary. I remember clearly that as a kid I did a lot of daydreaming while lying somewhere and observing the patterns of the tree leaves against the sky, or the shapes of the clouds continuously transforming into new ones. I just wish that I could also remember, in detail, what exactly I was daydreaming about, all the visuals and the narratives. Sometimes I daydream about my childhood daydreams and desperately try to grasp any bits and pieces that I want to believe are still floating somewhere in my brain; similar to when I back then tried to imprint the shape a cloud made into my eyeballs, so as not to forget it whilst the cloud had already shifted, and moved on.

Recently, everything reminds me of this time two years ago. Nature is circular, so it’s not surprising that the repetitive fashion of how things are structured, arranged and designed leads to a continuous remembrance of how things went down years or decades prior. The Venice biennale, for example, is every two years—of course I’m scrolling through my camera roll from summer 2024 to remember the last one.
Upon closer investigation, anniversaries are more complex than I realized. I‘m not talking about birthdays or weddings, but those dates that you don’t have to put into a calendar to remember, you just seem to do, whether you want it or not. How does that process come about? Is it body memory? If you don’t set up a reminder, but find yourself reminded, what triggers the memory? What leads to the (unplanned) awareness of a specific date?

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A selection of ink drawings from my new series The Thing That Looks Like Dark Coated Paper will be exhibited for the first time at paper positions Berlin from April 30th to May 3rd at Flughafen Tempelhof, alongside works by Ute Pleuger, my former professor at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle (Saale), which is an absolute and kind of insane honour for me. Please come by and say hello at Galerie Ricarda Fox‘s booth if you are around, we will both be present at the opening and in between during the weekend, and we would love to see some friendly faces.

P A P E R P O S I T I O N S . B E R L I N

30 April — 3 May 2026

Flughafen Tempelhof — Haupthalle
Platz der Luftbrücke 5
12101 Berlin

U6; Platz der Luftbrücke
Bus 248, M43: Columbiadamm / Platz der Luftbrücke

D E U T S C H

Eine Auswahl von Tuschezeichnungen aus meiner neuen Serie The Thing That Looks Like Dark Coated Paper wird vom 30. April bis zum 3. Mai auf der paper positions Berlin in der Haupthalle des Flughafen Tempelhofs erstmals ausgestellt, zusammen mit Werken von Ute Pleuger, meiner ehemaligen Professorin an der Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle (Saale), was für mich eine absolute und irgendwie verrückte Ehre ist. Kommt doch vorbei und sagt Hallo, wenn ihr in der Stadt seid. Wir werden beide zur Eröffnung, und zwischendurch im Verlauf des Wochenendes, am Stand der Galerie Ricarda Fox anwesend sein und würden uns sehr über ein paar freundliche Gesichter freuen.

For some time now I have been making my own clothes. If I remember correctly, I picked up sewing around the same time I learned knitting from my mother when I was a child between the ages 6 and 10. Eventually, she let me use her grandmother’s—my great-grandmother’s—sewing machine, which I ended up using later on, aged 18 to 20, mainly to alter all the jeans I owned, turning them into the skinniest of skinny jeans. My favourite band was The Horrors, a UK garage punk band, and my pants had to be black, skin-tight, paired with pointy leather shoes and big hair.
My sewing skills remained at a very basic level until I bought my own machine sometime after moving to Berlin, in 2009, and starting an internship at a fashion PR agency (no need to dive deeper into this because it was truly awful.) There is no denying my love of fashion and clothes. From an early age I have been interested in creating outfits and designing my own pieces, however, I was intimidated by the executional element in the production process, thinking one had to be a professional at the sewing machine to do anything at all.

One of the best things about being an artist is that I get to be cuckoo bananas in the sense that I believe I can learn to make everything myself (e.g. woodwork, all the printing techniques, perfumery, video game programming etc.) I suppose that has been my reasoning for ignoring any and all instructions, rulebooks, general guidelines, and instead freestyling my way into clothes making; I come up with shapes and silhouettes I personally like, and collage together pieces of fabrics that I have lying around or that mean something to me. The process mirrors my art practice: I combine multiple different layers of reality / materials that may seem incompatible but end up making sense together. Both in my artworks and in my clothes I attempt to hold on to the separateness, letting it remain visible where I intervened to bring the individual pieces together, while also creating oneness. To me, this way of making achieves a special kind of beauty; one that I rarely (= never) see in mass-produced retail fashion.

For my clothes, I prefer to use fabrics and second-hand pieces that have either been given to me or that I found in the streets, because the items already carry stories. There is also an element of chance when I work with what is randomly available. I have a dedicated spot in my closet where I collect pieces that I know I want to make something else out of later. Upon first inspection I usually have an idea in the form of a visual coming up in my brain of a new design based on the colour, cut, texture or vibe of the material. I archive the prototypes of designs that work best, such as a t-shirt dress I have made at least five versions of. Because I always use so many different fabrics and combine them in different ways, the dresses do not resemble each other, even though the cut remains roughly the same.

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Last week I took my first ballet class in seven years.

I am not planning to get back into a seven-days-a-week training routine. There are multiple reasons why I quit ballet, the main one being a damaged hip, and I am not nearly as willing to compromise my (physical and mental) health in the name of beauty, elegance and athleticism as I was in my twenties. However, my departure from it, in 2019, happened abruptly and in a somewhat dissociated fashion, mainly because I was in absolutely no condition to stomach the loss of my ballerina identity during that time. Turns out suppressing my feelings did not make them fade into oblivion though; rather they remained hidden somewhere, occasionally gnawing at me as a subtle reminder that I never really found closure. Now an upcoming project presents me with the chance to dip my toes back into the ominous waters of tights, frappés and splits. I am equally excited and terrified, but mostly curious; dedicated to approach both the training and myself as a dancer in a different (healthier) way than before. When I look into the studio mirror, I want to ask myself “How does this feel?” instead of internally screaming all the things that are wrong with me and my body.

The ballet world still pushes a number of narrow-minded ideas about power, both on a societal level and inside the individual dancer’s mind. Traditional rules may have been questioned repeatedly, but they surely are still being upheld by many companies and institutions. Requirements for ballet dancers include: be as thin as possible (while also be strong enough to perform,) have the perfect arch, perfect leg extension, make it look as though it takes no strength or effort whatsoever to do what you are doing at all times. Dancers of colour are so rare, ballet attire has to be adjusted individually to match skin colours other than white. Female dancers cannot be tall, because they’d be even taller on pointe shoes and they must not be taller than their male partner in a pas de deux. Even while I was taking classes at the Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet—a dance company known for its diverse dancers, originality, unique artistic expression and commitment to the advancement of contemporary dance—why did I feel drawn to this art form’s traditions and rules, which I find in part outrageously outdated and harmful?

Some of us carry a fundamental desire to be told that we are okay, that we make sense, and that we are understood. When in the past or growing up, you have felt as though something was never quite right about you, you may end up always seeking reassurance from your surroundings. Ballet comes with a clear set of rules and goals, making it appear possible to achieve said goals and, thus, reassurance, if you only work hard enough. There’s also the desire to please that so many women have been brought up to internalise, to the point where it feels like a personality trait rather than a by-product of the patriarchy.

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There is a yōkai (a supernatural being / spirit in Japanese folklore) I recently learned about that nicely illustrates two opposed characteristics of uncertainty; on the one hand the horror of the unknown and facing the fact that none of us are ever really in control, as well as, on the other hand, the unique potential in not knowing, in being able to consider multiple possibilities and develop marginal ideas into successful approaches. This yōkai is called 黒き渋紙の如きもの (The thing that looks like dark-coated paper) and described as

a large, black, aerial creature that descended from the sky to attack a group of people in 1726. Its body was flat and wide, covering an area about eight tatami mats in size, and resembled an enormous sheet of shibugami — a type of paper coated with astringent persimmon juice which gives it a dark color and a rough, durable texture. It had a beaked face at one end and a tiny tail at the other.1

The yōkai is black, and because it covers almost the entire sky—in fact, replacing it— it turns the source of light on earth into a source of darkness. The sky represents enlightenment, freedom, expansiveness, and infinite possibilities. When the yōkai takes its place, it casts a shadow onto those associated qualities, turning them, alongside their meanings, upside down; freedom and infinite possibilities become decision overload and anxiety, expansiveness appears as threatening instead of liberating. While a light-blue sky may symbolise a lucid mind, free from conflict, a darkened one suggests turbulence or an upcoming change, perhaps a crisis.

Up until this point, it is quite a scary story, however, it does not end here. Legend says that after it floated down from the sky, landing on top a group of people and biting them, the yōkai was captured and brought into a nearby town. For a while it was displayed as a spectacle and made the town some money. When it died of old age, the townspeople decided to eat it, discovering that the cooked meat had healing effects, e.g. curing colic, tuberculosis, and infertility in women. When word spread about the miraculous monster meat, folks from nearby towns arrived asking for a piece, however, because nobody had thought to pickle or otherwise preserve it, there were no leftovers, and nothing of it remained.

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I have been thinking a lot about joy lately. For me, it is the emotion that I have the hardest time to identify and to allow myself to feel. Like many artists I prefer to express myself through my work, not only but mostly because I am rarely able to adequately verbalise what I feel. However, I have never found expressing myself to be a fitting explanation of what I intend to do by making art. Both the process of the practice, as well as the resulting works are more complicated. And anyway, why is it that I have been the most joyous I have been in a long time, but at the same time I have been making the darkest, moodiest drawings? While I am getting better at joy, wouldn’t simply expressing myself naturally lead to brighter works? Clearly, an artist’s art making is not the same as keeping a diary, no matter how much of one’s personal, inner narratives are woven into it.
I would put myself into the group of artists whose process oscillates between chance and calculation, and whose work is—definitely—self-related. That does not mean it is only about myself though; it is more an observed perception of my surroundings, almost like I am sitting inside myself in some sort of intuitive, pre-verbal, pre-pictoral space, looking out and recording what I am observing and sensing through that particular lens.

The other day a friend and I went to the screening of Taylor Ervin’s film “Goodbye Art” at Filmrauschpalast in Moabit. Some of you might know Ervin’s YouTube series “Scorned by Muses" which he publishes under the handle The Yearbook Committee. As much as I am tempted to discuss his YouTube series as well as the film (that I enjoyed very much,) for now I would like to focus on his definition of art making in the context of a utopian (and marxist) approach to the future of art, the current lack of substantial art (and criticism), and the increasing number of scientific studies supporting the theory that engaging with the arts (no matter the medium) significantly increases happiness, health and hopefulness.

During the Q & A following the screening of “Goodbye Art,” something Ervin said struck me. Confronted with the question of what current art should do, he said that he thinks art making is objectifying the tension between what reality is and what the artist wants it to be. I believe in the face of the collapse of so-called political art (also, obviously, a misleading term) it becomes apparent—even to those who before would have labelled this perspective too elitist or radical—that to be, and to remain, autonomous, art must be purposeless and bound only by its own laws. Only when art does not try to send political messages can it do what it so effectively does: trigger a whole spectrum of emotions, create identity, stimulate critical thinking, and irritate us through confrontation with the unknown. Instead of sending political messages in a pedagogical fashion, it must embrace ambiguity in order to remain open to diverse interpretations.

Now, while I get slightly embarrassed when I use the word utopia (I am not comfortably delusional, yet,) Ervin openly declares it a major part of his theoretical thinking, and defines his idea of a utopian future as a place where art has become redundant—nobody makes art anymore, because humans have shaped reality into the most aesthetically and socially satisfying place, where desire ceased to exist and art is not necessary anymore. The before-mentioned tension between actual reality and desired reality, that artists nowadays ought to objectify in the form of artworks, has dissolved.
This idea is of course linked to Ervin’s marxism—utopia is a place that has overcome capitalism; everyone is able to live comfortably irrespective of their socio-economic background. Economic structures are redesigned to ensure universal equality and well-being, instead of profit maximization. Hence, there is no more struggle or tension for artists to bounce off of.

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The other day I lost a beloved item from my childhood—a thick, black wool cape my mother gave to me when I was in kindergarten. Back then I used it to dress up as a vampire, something I aspired to become (in all seriousness.) I was a shy kid and the cape not only served the purpose of cosplaying Anna from “Der Kleine Vampir,” it was also a protection device, concealing the entirety of my small children’s frame and shutting me off from the outside world. I kept the cape as an adult, all this time, occasionally using it as a blanket, or, in the winter, as an additional scarf whenever temperatures dropped below -5. It’s slightly comical to me that I lost this particular piece of memorabilia while on a walk discussing childhood stuff with someone.
When I noticed my loss, I was baffled by my own inability to have an adequate emotional reaction. I was less heartbroken because of my attachment to the cape, and more struck by anxiety upon realising the disorder caused by having lost something. I rarely ever lose or misplace things, perhaps I am a bit controlling. Thus, when it does happen, the surprising nature of the loss itself wins over the emotional response to losing a specific object I may have had a special relationship or history with.
However, as soon as the surprise and anxiety settled, I began to think about what losing the cape would mean for my ability to remember the bits of my childhood associated with it. Items carry memories. It suddenly felt as though with the cape, a specific part of my identity had gone, too.

Ten years ago I went to live in San Francisco for a year, studying in the MFA in Fine Arts program at CCA (which is, sadly, shutting down soon.) That year abroad was life-changing, as it set off a chain of small and big decisions and events, such as meeting people that became friends that I now consider family, my stay in New York City a year after, and many more. Somewhere along the way, while in the USA, I became enamoured with the œuvre of Laurie Anderson. Apart from being a phenomenal multimedia and interdisciplinary artist, she wrote a book called “All The Things I Lost in The Flood", which I remember picking up from the Humboldt University’s library after coming back to Berlin from NYC. It’s rare for me to have such a clear memory of something, but I suppose the book—itself, of course, a beautiful object, clearly made to not only be read but admired like a piece of art—in part initiated my long-term romance with memory and all things memory-related. In 2012, hurricane Sandy hit the US East Coast, and the waters that came with it flooded New York City, including the basement of Anderson‘s apartment that she shared with her husband, Lou Reed. Upon inspection after the worst was over, she discovered she had lost pretty much everything stored in there. In true Laurie Anderson fashion, her immediate devastation was mixed with astonishment at the beauty and magic of seeing her carefully saved items „floating there,“ irrevocably lost.

In the book, Anderson describes making a list of all the things she lost in the flood, and, upon writing the list, realising that having written down the names of the lost objects is enough; she does not need them to be retrieved or replaced, they are there (still, or rather, again) because she remembers, because she writes their names.

I am aware of both the qualities and the pitfalls of memory loss. In the every day life it can be annoying, and even harmful, not to remember things, words, names, faces, situations, functions etc. However, amnesia is also a powerful psychic tool for protection when faced with traumatic events. I had on-going amnesia for about a year after something happened to me in the summer of 2023, and I feel a bit ashamed admitting that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had zero memory of the most part of what had happened, and also did not remember anything from my childhood, youth, adult life, or even from the month, the week, the day or an hour before. One might think this would have made me more present in the moment, but that was not the case, it was rather the opposite; I was in a constant state of depersonalization. Both these things were necessary, and welcome, and they didn’t make me feel as though I was dying. They were helping me survive.

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Lately I have been noticing that I often use drawing as a tool for disassociation, when I am unable to physically remove myself from an uncomfortable situation. The frequency with which I do this underlines just how effective a tool it is. One may argue that putting my pencil to work when I’m nervous or anxious is simply self-stimulatory behavior (also called stimming in the neurodivergent community) however, I am very aware of my stimming (I always have a few tools at hand if I need them) and I have found that drawing for dissociation—the process, methods and functionality behind it—serves a different purpose entirely.

For better or worse I am a veteran dissociator; I have done it so often throughout my life that I am beginning to believe that I have spent most of my time on this planet outside of my body. Usually I find dissociation extremely unpleasant. Detaching from myself leaves me feeling desolate, repulsed, disoriented and lonely. Therefore, in most cases, I never consciously chose to do so; it was simply my automatic, unconscious response to all disturbing, potentially dangerous events. I am fully aware that my psyche only wants to protect me through this separation of mind and body, so I have learned to appreciate it as an involuntary but necessary, and ultimately beneficial, protective measure.

Since debarking on this journey of acceptance, I have been pondering the more favourable qualities of dissociation, and considering using it—however ambivalent it sounds—as a way to stay with myself when I can‘t, when it‘s too painful to stay with myself.

The other day I was forced to spend some time in a place where there were no boundaries, and I had no room of my own to retreat to. Nobody seemed to have a personal space, and mine was being invaded 24/7. I knew this was temporary, but it did not make it any less painful. In this kind of situation, I remind myself of one of the (many) advantages of being an artist, a knight in shining armour: my sketchbook. Wherever I am, I can take it out and leave my body and a reality that appears unbearable; focusing on drawing blocks out the noises, voices and the sights. Also, usually, people tend to be more likely to leave me alone when I am engaging in drawing or writing, as though I’m only allowed peace and quiet when I’m doing my “art stuff.”

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I love ink. I know, I know—I sound ridiculous. Just the other week, I kept bursting out „Ugghhh I love lithography“ and now I’m saying the exact same thing about ink, but, I swear, both are true.

Ink and watercolours are the closest drawing can get to painting. And yet, the two are completely different from oils, acrylics, tempera or even gouache, mainly because of the direction of darkness and light. In ink, what has been made dark can‘t become light again. The brightest parts in an ink drawing are the ones with the least amount of ink applied, thus, whiteness equals emptiness, and blackness is complete saturation. This is not true for painting, where white colour can easily be applied on top of darker hues; you can go both directions, and you can easily switch between them. In ink and watercolour, once you went dark, there’s no going back.

I am drawn to techniques that make it hard or even impossible to erase mistakes, to repair, redo, or fix something. I suspect my work is better when I only have one try. It doesn’t mean I don’t make countless works that try and fail. However, I guess if a trial ends up being successful, it really is successful. Some works succeed, despite including previous, failed attempts (such as misguided lines, markings, accidental drops of ink) and sometimes they succeed, because of them.

I used to crave safety in many areas of my life, and I still do (although, thankfully, to a lesser extent). Security isn’t something one can just lose and be fine without. After all, there‘s the evolutional drive to secure one‘s own survival in any given situation. And within this particular capitalist system, parts of this world profit off of our fears and desires. Safety is important, but feeling safe can also stand in the way; some things can only emerge when a risk is being taken.

I don’t suppose that the thrill of the risk hypes me up and makes for a better drawing. Instead, over time, getting used to an absence of a safety net in my ink drawing creates a sense of trust—not only in my technical abilities, but, I assume, in a skill set sometimes referred to as Augenmaß (literal translation: eye measurement.) Earlier this year I read a book on Augenmaß, written by Christian Metz, in which the author examines this phenomenon in regard to its cultural aesthetics and as a tool in political decision making. I was struck by how well some of Metz’ suggested definitions of Augenmaß matched what I experience when I draw.

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Sometimes I get asked when exactly I “became an artist,“ and I don’t really have an answer. I am one of those that can’t remember a time in their lives when they didn’t make art. So, for practical purposes, I make a distinction between making art and making art professionally, the latter meaning the artworks enter the art market / get a price tag. And, even though I started selling art while still in art school (like most art students) I name 2021 as the year of the official start of my professional career, because that’s the year I graduated as Meisterschülerin from Weißensee. However, if the question is more about the artistic development rather than the business side of the practice, I tend to look back to even before art school. I honestly still think about works that I made in, like, 2009. Somewhere in a little village in North West Germany, there’s a pretty gruesome painting I once made of two (?) pink (can you imagine?) french bulldogs. It haunts me to this day. I gave it to my older sister at some point (she actually likes pink). Part of me hopes it “got lost” during her recent move.

Obviously my practice revolves around drawing, in many different forms, techniques and on different surfaces. Most of the times I work in series, and I enjoy making things that I can, however broadly, put into groups, categorize, and contextualize. At regular intervals I make drawings that cannot be classified into any of my series or groups because they are either formally or thematically completely different. Often those are the drawings I get attached to in a funny way, the ones I still think about sixteen years later. Recently, I chose one of those outlier drawings as motif for a new lithograph edition.

The title “Revenant” (something that comes back; from the French revenir) references both the returning to an old drawing, and returning to lithography (exactly one year ago I made my first one.) Last year, I kept getting visitors in form of moths and butterflies. Some of them, especially the moths, appeared unexpectedly, and in unexpected places, but it still felt as though they were old friends visiting me / returning. I know this sounds trippy, but, well, last year was kind of a fever dream.

These days many of us reflect on this past year, revisiting old notes and journals, scrolling through old pictures, dissecting the information, comparing the present with the past to become more aware of the changes that we barely notice while in the midst of them. I enjoy the way all of this highlights the cyclical nature of existence on earth. Although, now that I think about it, I’d rather call it a spiral, not a cycle. The returning I think of is not a coming back to the same thing in the same way—it’s a comeback in a similar way, but changed. There’s a partial repetition, continuing the circular motion, but with a deviation that ensures progress. A cycle is the infinite repetition of the same, a spiral is infinite circular motion. The latter feels like a more adequate symbol of the human experience.

If you‘d like to get your hands on one (or more) of the 20 lithographs, let me know via email: studio@alineschwibbe.com.

Happy holidays to you and yours,
and thank you for reading x

Manchmal werde ich gefragt, wann genau ich „Künstlerin geworden bin“, und ich habe darauf keine richtige Antwort. Ich gehöre zu den Menschen, die sich nicht daran erinnern können, jemals nicht künstlerisch tätig gewesen zu sein. Aus praktischen Gründen unterscheide ich daher zwischen künstlerischem Schaffen und professionellem Schaffen, wobei Letzteres bedeutet, dass die Kunstwerke auf den Kunstmarkt kommen bzw. einen Preis erhalten. Und obwohl ich schon während meiner Ausbildung angefangen habe, Kunst zu verkaufen (wie viele Kunststudierende), bezeichne ich 2021 als das Jahr, in dem meine berufliche Laufbahn offiziell begann, denn in diesem Jahr habe ich mein Studium an der Weißensee Kunsthochschule als Meisterschülerin abgeschlossen. Wenn es jedoch eher um die künstlerische Entwicklung als um die geschäftliche Seite geht, blicke ich schon auf die Zeit vor der Kunsthochschule zurück. Ehrlich gesagt denke ich immer noch an Arbeiten, die ich z.B. 2009 gemacht habe. Irgendwo in einem kleinen Dorf im Nordwesten Deutschlands gibt es ein ziemlich grauenhaftes Gemälde, das ich einmal von zwei (?) rosa (könnt ihr euch das vorstellen?) französischen Bulldoggen gemalt habe. Es verfolgt mich bis heute. Irgendwann habe ich es meiner älteren Schwester geschenkt (sie mag tatsächlich Rosa). Ein Teil von mir hofft, dass es bei ihrem letzten Umzug „verloren gegangen” ist.

Offensichtlich dreht sich meine Arbeit um das Zeichnen, in vielen verschiedenen Formen, Techniken und auf unterschiedlichen Oberflächen. Meistens arbeite ich in Serien und es macht mir Spaß, Dinge zu schaffen, die ich, wenn auch nur grob, in Gruppen einteilen, kategorisieren und in einen Kontext setzen kann. In regelmäßigen Abständen fertige ich aber Zeichnungen an, die sich formal oder thematisch völlig von meinen Serien oder Gruppen unterscheiden und daher nicht zuzuordnen sind. Oft sind es gerade diese Zeichnungen, zu denen ich auf seltsame Weise eine besondere Beziehung entwickle und an die ich auch sechzehn Jahre später noch denke. Kürzlich habe ich eine solche Ausreißer-Zeichnung als Motiv für eine neue Lithografie-Edition ausgewählt.

Der Titel „Revenant“ (etwas, das zurückkehrt; vom französischen revenir) bezieht sich sowohl auf die Rückkehr zu einer alten Zeichnung als auch auf die Rückkehr zur Lithografie (vor genau einem Jahr habe ich meine erste angefertigt). Letztes Jahr hatte ich immer wieder Besuch von Motten und Schmetterlingen. Einige von ihnen, insbesondere die Motten, tauchten unerwartet und an unerwarteten Orten auf, aber es fühlte sich dennoch so an, als würden alte Freunde mich besuchen/zurückkehren. Ich weiß, das klingt seltsam, aber letztes Jahr war auch irgendwie ein Fiebertraum.

In diesen Tagen denken viele von uns über das vergangene Jahr nach, schauen sich alte Notizen und Tagebücher an, scrollen durch alte Fotos, analysieren die Informationen und vergleichen die Gegenwart mit der Vergangenheit, um uns der Veränderungen bewusst zu werden, die wir kaum bemerken, wenn wir mittendrin stecken. Mir gefällt, wie all dies die zyklische Natur des Daseins auf der Erde hervorhebt. Obwohl, wenn ich jetzt darüber nachdenke, würde ich es eher als Spirale bezeichnen, nicht als Zyklus. Die Rückkehr, an die ich denke, ist keine Rückkehr zum Gleichen auf die gleiche Weise – es ist eine Rückkehr in ähnlicher Weise, aber verändert. Es gibt eine teilweise Wiederholung, die die kreisförmige Bewegung fortsetzt, aber mit einer kleinen Abweichung, die den Fortschritt sicherstellt. Ein Zyklus ist die unendliche Wiederholung des Gleichen, eine Spirale ist eine unendliche Kreisbewegung. Letztere scheint mir ein passenderes Symbol für die menschliche Erfahrung zu sein.

Wenn ihr an einer (oder an mehreren) der 20 Lithografien interessiert seid, antwortet bitte auf diese E-Mail oder sendet eine E-Mail an: studio@alineschwibbe.com.

Frohe Feiertage an euch und eure Liebsten,
und Danke fürs Lesen x

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The other day I listened to an interview with Ocean Vuong1, author of the much celebrated “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.” I’d started to read “On Earth We‘re Briefly Gorgeous” multiple times a few years ago and never finished it; for some reason it didn’t quite captivate me, even though the writing is stunning. I kept thinking I would have loved to read a poetry version of the book. I’d gotten the feeling that Vuong was a poet first, a prose writer second. This was also, among other topics, what Vuong and the interviewer, Bella Freud, discussed on the podcast.

In my world, there is no doubt that drawing is superior to (and more essential than) any other artistic medium in the Fine Arts (if this offends you—sorry, not sorry). In a similar way Vuong argues for poetry to be the more important skill to focus on in the teaching of any form of writing. I believe his arguments can easily be transferred to drawing and its role in the artistic practice. Poetry’s and drawing’s unique characteristics can be connected to, and provide a deeper understanding of some of the topics I am concerned with in my work.

I understand drawing as just as fundamental to artistic practice as poetry is to writing. Both of them can be practiced with the most basic of tool sets—pen and paper. Trying to master a craft, it makes sense to start with the bare basics, to stay within the limitations of the chosen medium before adding on the extras and venture further. Anyone can tell if a painting, even an abstract one, was made by someone that has advanced technical figurative drawings skills or not. However, I do not want to (only) argue for an increased focus on the development of a strong drawing skill because it is most often the bone structure that’s necessary for any artwork being created. I want to argue for drawing to be the artwork being created. Because in the hierarchy of artistic media drawing still lands below painting—acting only as a servant to the image—it is crucial to continuously acknowledge and learn its inherent qualities and challenges.

In the interview, Vuong argues that, unlike a sentence, a line must be activated somehow, in order to be similarly impactful. Working with reduced material is more difficult, because it reveals the artist‘s skill and knowledge quite openly, laying bare what exactly is being done, mistakes and all. You can’t fake anything. Lines don’t lie. The difficulty lies in the question of how exactly a line can be activated while remaining just a line. How does an art student, or someone who learns to draw, build trust and confidence in their linework? Basic art studies should help students clarify the following questions: What can linework do that a brushstroke, plaster, or video cannot? What can a line do that a sentence cannot? How must the line be activated in order to be as successful as the painting? Drawing demands more of us than other media; therein also lies its potential. At any point in a visual artist’s practice and career, drawing is the perfect medium for truly presenting line as your fingerprint, your DNA.

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(bitte nach unten scrollen für die deutsche Version)

Hi, hello, I know it’s been a bit quiet over here, or so it may seem from the outside, ever since I quit Social Media. In reality, I’ve just been laser focused on my work in the studio; I look forward to sharing with you what I’ve been making in the not-too-far future. Thank you to everyone who came to visit me in the studio this year to get a glimpse of what’s been cooking in the background. I am always grateful for the opportunity to talk directly in front of the pieces, while they’re passing through that threshold moment of becoming something.

After I fell in love (head-over-heels-struck-by-lightning-style) with lithography last year, I am making it a tradition to release a new one every fall / winter (at the very least!1) My second lithograph is coming in December, a little sneak peek of the stone down below. It’s 50 x 70 cm (size of paper), based on a drawing I made in 2019, and titled “Revenant.“

(I switched the photograph; the print will look like this, not mirrored.)

Working on “Revenant” I find myself inside some kind of sticky, repeating cycle of contradicting feelings about transformation, endings / beginnings, grief, and freedom. Every other year I become re-obsessed with Inger Christensen’s “Butterfly Valley: A Requiem,” (thanks again, Ute) which I remember I was reading during the making of the original drawing. Just like the drawing (not so much as an image but more as a scene) the sonnets got stuck in me, hidden somewhere behind the collarbone. Every now and then they re-emerge and then I can’t stop thinking about them. And then I have to go buy a few new copies of the book (because I keep giving them away in an attempt to make everyone aware of how otherworldly good these poems are.)

Of course there is a whole new body of works on velvet that I will exhibit in given time. I look forward to sharing more of what I have been, and am, making again. Thanks for being here.

PS: I may, potentially, return to posting on Instagram at some point, so if you want to you can follow me there. Same old handle @alineschwibbe

Hi, hallo, ich weiß, dass es hier etwas ruhig geworden ist, zumindest erscheint das wahrscheinlich von außen so, seit ich mich aus den sozialen Medien zurückgezogen habe. In Wirklichkeit habe ich mich nur voll und ganz auf meine Arbeit im Atelier konzentriert. Ich freue mich darauf, euch in nicht allzu ferner Zukunft zu zeigen, was ich produziert habe. Lieben Dank an alle, die mich dieses Jahr im Atelier besucht haben, um einen Einblick in meinen Prozess zu bekommen. Ich bin immer dankbar für die Gelegenheit, direkt vor den Arbeiten zu sprechen, während sie diesen entscheidenden Schwellenmoment durchlaufen, in dem sie zu etwas werden.

Nachdem ich mich letztes Jahr Hals über Kopf in die Lithografie verliebt habe, mache ich es mir zur Tradition, jeden Herbst/Winter ein neues Werk zu veröffentlichen (at the very least! / mindestens!2). Meine zweite Lithografie erscheint im Dezember, unten ein kleiner Vorgeschmack auf den Stein. Es handelt sich um das Format 50 x 70 cm (Größe des Papiers), basierend auf einer Zeichnung, die ich 2019 angefertigt habe und die den Titel „Revenant“ trägt.

Während der Arbeit an „Revenant“ befinde ich mich in einer Art klebrigem, sich wiederholendem Kreislauf widersprüchlicher Gefühle über Verwandlung, Ende/Anfang, Trauer und Freiheit. Alle zwei Jahre bin ich erneut besessen von Inger Christensens „Butterfly Valley: A Requiem“ (danke nochmal, Ute), das ich, wie ich mich erinnere, während der Entstehung der Originalzeichnung gelesen habe. Genau wie die Zeichnung (nicht so sehr als Bild, sondern eher als Szene) blieben die Sonette in mir haften, versteckt irgendwo hinter meinem Schlüsselbein. Von Zeit zu Zeit tauchen sie wieder auf, und dann kann ich nicht aufhören, an sie zu denken. Und dann muss ich mir ein paar neue Exemplare des Buches kaufen gehen (weil ich sie immer wieder verschenke, um allen bewusst zu machen, wie überirdisch gut diese Gedichte sind).

Natürlich gibt es eine ganze Reihe neuer Arbeiten auf Samt, die ich zu gegebener Zeit ausstellen werde. Ich freue mich darauf, wieder mehr von dem zu zeigen, was ich geschaffen habe und gerade schaffe. Danke, dass ihr hier seid.

PS: Möglicherweise werde ich irgendwann wieder auf Instagram posten, wenn ihr also möchtet, könnt ihr mir dort folgen. Gleicher alter Nutzername @alineschwibbe