We live in a society in which so-called “undesirable emotional states” are often repressed and find little space in public discourse. I would like to make their existence visible and give them the space they deserve on discarded materials that are just as undesirable and which in themselves carry stories.

My current cycle of works is entitled “penas viviales”, a neologism made up of “penas” (Spanish for “suffering/pain”), “triviales” (Spanish for “everyday/trivial”) and “vivas” (Spanish for “alive”), which refers to the “living everyday sufferings” that we have to integrate into our lives. The works “da” and “Trost” deal with the painful process of my father’s slow disappearance due to his illness of frontotemporal dementia.

My drawings are often impulsive and are created in a matter of minutes. I started transferring them onto fabric and embroidering them by hand when I was increasingly commuting between my family and Bremen and looking for something to do during the long train journeys. This technique also allowed me to preserve the dynamics of the stroke of the respective snapshot and offered me an activity with which I was mobile and whose meditative character slowed me down and allowed me to calm down.

During the time-consuming process of embroidery – a symbol of patience and dedication – I realized that fabric – in this case a comforter cover cut in half – as an artistic medium underlines the intimacy that is often inherent in my work. As a daily companion, fabric allows us closeness, it touches us and surrounds us during sleep, one of our most vulnerable moments.