Immortality of Time

16 March – 13 April 2019
Immortality of Time
Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin

Quilted Narratives 12
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 15
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 18
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 27
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 29
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 30
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 38
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 39
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 51
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Quilted Narratives 53
2018
Patchwork
60 x 60 cm

Immortality of Time consists of patchworks through which the artist explores the fabric of mythologies. The exhibition suggests a bond of the textile’s uses with storytelling and mythos. It also shows how the fabric of human lives echoes in the quilted and fragmented nature of mythologies.

A patch is a fragment. It is a vestige of wholeness that stands as a sign of loss and a challenge to creative design. As a remainder or remnant, the patch may symbolize rupture and impoverishment. It defines the faded glory of the already gone. But, as a fragment, it is also rife with the explosive potential of the yet to be discovered. The assemblage of the pieces and forms in a complex matrix suggests depth and intensity. Sewing patchwork quilts from the old wear torn up to make something new and useful is seen by the women as a new creation after destruction, a symbolic act in the sense that something lost awakened to life. The process of collecting and assembling ephemeral but evocative fragments into a form conceived as a narrative is in itself usually gendered as feminine. For the artist, collaborating with the women has a purpose.

The quilted aesthetic in which something whole patched from discarded fragments offers an alternative mode of creativity, which take place within the flow of daily life. Quilting is a mother tongue, visual language and culture indigenous to women that enables them to create works in which they speak the truth about their lives. The artist revisits his mother tongue using the elements of his paintings in the patchworks. He aligns himself with an art form based on the joining into wholes of separate fragments of fabric. The works aim to define the aesthetics of the language of quilt making and to bring them into a more central position in the cultural conversation. The artist’s patchworks demonstrate inherent respect for a tangible form of visual satisfaction.