SO WOW MAGAZINE

View Original

Escapes – Andrea Van Reimersdahl

It’s time for some artistic inspiration, this is definitely the best way to ESCAPE and this story represents the amazing power of a creative cooperation. Simply enjoy it! “Before I received my MFA from the Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin I focused on drawings and printmaking. I printed on canvas, paper, wood, glass, and others…. Eventually on textiles like T-Shirts and dresses. Things developed their own dynamics. Accordingly I started my own line of printed fashion editions. I was fascinated by the option to see the
silhouette of the human body as a graphical sculpture. I loved the speed and the fluctuation of the fashion world.

I participated on many successful, international projects and co-operations, as for the fashion house Prada or several Warner Brothers movie productions, as co-operations with Museumsquartier Vienna and Deutsche Guggenheim Museums shop. I presented my line international in fashion shows and I worked with a wide distribution to selected stores. In 2013 I finished my fashion production.
My new challenge is to realize textile installations and performances that communicate attributes such as fleetingness and transience in a spatial dimension. The aim is the space experience.”

Let’s talk about ESCAPE. What’s the concept?

A friend introduced me to Ivonne Dippmann. She lived in Tel Aviv and had just published a book of her work with drawings and printed textiles. Elated about our matching creative power, we developed the concept of our cooperation called ESCAPES.
The objective of ESCAPES is to enable the cooperation of two artists at the interface of art and fashion. The analogue production approach of this project forms a clear counter-position to mass production and cut-price textile products in the context of contemporary production structures. ESCAPES places Tel Aviv and Berlin in context as urban action spaces in the form of a dialogue, and thereby merges these socially and politically different “landscapes” into one wearable textile. ESCAPES focuses on surfaces and surface textures that derive from the visual and material density of landscape and urban structures in the public realm, in this case Tel Aviv (Ivonne Dippmann) and Berlin (Andrea van Reimersdahl).
The ESCAPES edition consists of 112 unique hand-printed items. We did a catalogue shooting with the photographer Daniel Reiter and the both of us. The idea was to visualize the intensity of our dialog and cooperation. Escape was exhibited in several exhibitions and performances and some items are exclusively presented in our web store to purchase.

The catalogue can be seen here.

What do you try to express through your art? What is art?

There is no one universal definition of art but there is general consensus that art is the conscious creation of something meaningful using skill and imagination.
My inspiration comes from many fields like art history, contemporary media, urbanism and visual expressions of communication within our society. I express my imagination and ideas with my own skills. Many interests are influencing my work as e.g. Japanese aesthetics, black and white movies, architectural facades or simply basics as lights and shadows.
My affinity to textiles is rooted in my family and in my hometown. I grew up next to a weaving and dyeing company. My grandmother was a seamstress and she used to paint on silk. I joined her always as a kid. In my work I express fleetingness and transience in a spatial dimension. Textiles are the main material, which enables me to create the special atmosphere my works communicate with. Textiles are our second skin. i like to emphasize the lightness and the fragility.

What’s the best and the hardest thing of being an artist?

Just the fact to have the opportunity to bring your imagination to reality is fantastic.

What’s your next project?

I plan an exhibition for 2018 with a fellow artist. The idea of a joint exhibition focuses on the question of perfection or non-perfection of image surfaces in contemporary painting and beyond. My new pieces are sculptures combining textiles and neon tubes. I am very excited about the concept of using light and shadow to highlight the fragility and the spatiality of the material, which is partly reflecting or shining.

Webstore ESCAPES
Facebook ESCAPES
INSTAGRAM
Facebook ANDREA VAN REIMERSDAHL 
www.van-reimersdahl.com www.ivonnedippmann.eu/

Credits:
Daniel Reiter
Annette Hauschild