When Joana Schneider moved to The Hague, she started to go to the seashore frequently. Having spent her childhood in Munich, the ocean was a novel and a fruitful supply of inspiration. Quickly, the fishermen working within the harbor caught her eye.
“There was something so intriguing about their world, which seemed to straddle this line between rugged labor and delicate artistry,” Schneider tells Colossal. “They were using knotting techniques, traditionally seen as feminine and delicate, but on a much larger scale, with heavy-duty ropes.”
The artist shortly related what the anglers created with the traditions of textile artwork and started to supply their leftover rope. Now primarily based on
KNSM Island in Amsterdam, Schneider continues to make the most of the mariner materials in her large-scale sculptures. “I spend days untangling the nets before I can start working with them. Then, I dry the ropes in the sun, which gives them this oceanic scent,” she provides.
As soon as desiccated, the supplies usually change into the construction for skinny, colourful yarn the artist wraps across the strands. The completed works are generally summary and others boldly figurative, portraying exaggerated facial options in coiled, hand-stitched patchwork.
The method is labor-intensive, however the gradual, methodical actions are a part of what Schneider is drawn to. “Each turn of the yarn around the rope is a quiet, focused act. There is something very grounding about it. The rhythm of wrapping, the gentle tension of the yarn, and the soft texture of the fibers create a peaceful space where the world outside seems to fade away,” she says. The ensuing works retain proof of this meticulous course of as coils massive and small swell outward in completely concentric circles.
At present, Schneider is working towards a solo exhibition titled Otherworldly that may open in April on the Groniger Museum in The Netherlands. Blurring the road between the true and the improbable, the challenge attracts on the artist’s fascination with hybridity and features a performative aspect, a harbinger of the place her observe is headed. She shares:
After I consider the pure world, I usually consider the Renaissance custom of grotesque artwork. It fascinates me how, in that interval, artists combined human, animal, and plant types in intricate methods…The result’s a hybrid atmosphere that’s directly acquainted and alien. That’s one thing I attempt to obtain in my work, a way of marvel and a little bit of disorientation as if entering into a spot the place the boundaries of the pure world are intentionally blurred.
Schneider’s sculptures are at present on view on the FITE Textile Biennial in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and can be included in a 2025 group exhibition at König Galerie in Munich. Till then, discover extra of her work on her web site and Instagram.
