Day and Night Detail by Heidrun Schimmel, photo by Tom Grotta
Day and Night by German artist Heidrun Schimmel is one of the works that browngrotta arts will exhibit at SOFA NY in April. Schimmel is interested in the connection between fiber/fabric/textile and the human being. Mythologically, she notes, thread is connected to human existence. Its length and quality are metaphors for the duration and character of our lives, thus the expression, “…hanging by a thread…” Schimmel takes her ideas from the special characteristics of textiles, such as softness, flexibility, fragility. Her working process is very simple: she stitches by hand using white cotton thread on transparent black silk or cotton fabrics. From the tensions between the multiple thread layers result deformations: the work itself finds its final form through the combination of control and chance.This focus on “material as matter” results in forms that cannot be projected in advance. Day and Night was specifically influenced by the work of Japanese designers Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto whose work has inspired Schimmel since the 1980s.
29hsc Day and Night Heidrun Schimmel, white cotton thread, black transparent silk fabric, 71″ x 34″ x 7″, 1995/2010, photo by Tom Grotta