Winter Painting

I worked in the creative fields for the first part of my life. I was heading the visual expression and the trend forecasting department for an international high end furniture chain and it was my job to bring creative input and interpret abstract information and communicate my finding to buyers and visual merchandising. In this job I was in contact with many designers and artists but never found the courage to produce my own work. Or I was simply still searching for my own unique expression. I also partook in setting up many exhibitions, and again here I was presenting other peoples work. Often I have also been used as what you could describe as a muse, both helping organising and distilling creative expressions of other and to bring an honest and trusted view of a project and respond with my impressions. My previous position took me on many business trips around the world and I in particular enjoyed going to Japan where I went on many occasions. Here I picked up on the Japanese philosophy wabi sabi that is described like this in popular culture: The appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". This philosophy allowed me to think of myself as a whole person even with all my flaws and failures. I became a mother in 2006 and had a sickly child. This came with many hospitalisations and later PTSD. I lost my creative spark and found myself in a state of survival for some years. I did go through the motions of producing work but it never felt finished or complete to me. My media was back then as now; ink and paper. I let the ink run down the paper to create random patterns. It was not until last year where I feel like I finally found my own unique expression. It was during a psychedelic trip that I finally found this expression. I was laying down and praying for new insights and meaning when suddenly I saw my old ink paintings cut out and woven together in the exact style you see in my pieces today. It was a rush of joy that sparked the most productive period of my life. With this I have found my private personal expression. It is rooted in wabi sabi, where accidents and coincidences are celebrated and become a celebrated part of the product. It is a meditative process to cut the pieces out, a process where my mind becomes incredibly focussed on the simple task of cutting.