Ever since I can remember I've resisted traditional gender roles, and yet despite this resistance my biography is full of roles and occupations that are typically feminine. I am a mother, a teacher of textile-work. I'm also a collector, and much of what I collect finds its way into my art, like different textiles, hair, feathers and plants.
This contradiction is the theme of my collection, "Born 24.02.1953, Female."
Cleaning sponges provide the foundation for an ironical autobiography. In all of the series these banal, everyday things themselves become the works of art. The techniques with which I change and work on the sponges are also often traditionally feminine, like embroidery, sewing and braiding. So both the object itself,and the technique by which it is elaborated upon, are used in confluence to create an expression of the role of women in our society.
In “What I love” I use the perforated surface of the sponges as a place for embroidery. But instead of embroidering conventional flower patterns I choose instead a few of my own favorites motifs: spools of thread, paint brushes, clothes hangers, and so on.
In “My favorite patterns” the sponge is transformed into a pincushion, with the colorful pinheads forming well-known weaving patterns - an allusion to the time in my life when I myself aspired to becoming a weaver.
The "Contacts" series has as its theme the many times I've moved home and some of the details of starting a new life: the new neighbors, the search for a new doctor, a new hairdresser. Only very few people remain constant in my life.
"Implants" is the name I've given to the sponges whose centers have been partially replaced with favorite objects from my childhood, or with found objects that I've kept with me for years.
"Material collection", the last of the series, offers an insight into my habit of collecting, which is as much a part of me as breathing, and which happens without consideration or intention. Only much later do the found objects inspire me in my art.