Compressed and stitched, alternately densified or released, it transforms into abstract forms with organic reminiscences and contained energy. Poetic and existential, this art of transformation is also a mirror of ourselves.

Hanne Friis loves to create illusions. It is only upon closer inspection of her sculptures that one recognizes the material she has used: a textile that she transforms with masterful skill. Trained in sculpture and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Trondheim, Norway, between 1992 and 1996, it was while painting that she conceived the idea of ​​repurposing the canvas for sculpting. All textiles possess this potential for transfiguration and infinite variation of motifs, and she explores them without limits, from the refinement of velvet and silk to multicolored wools, which she treats like an Impressionist painter, and even to gilded plastics or materials imitating leather.

With textiles, she found her ideal form of expression, their flexibility allowing her to fold and refold them to create forms in motion, fixed by hand-sewing them together with a needle, but never static, as they can expand at will. Beginning with rolls of fabric, as neutral as a blank page inviting writing, the creative process, not limited to sewing, constitutes a true journey that can hold surprises, altering the initial idea. Hanne Friis likes to put her energy into this creative process, both physical and mental, requiring concentration while also possessing a meditative dimension. Her slowness inscribes the notion of time and evolution into her works. It echoes the organic aspect that her abstract forms take on. Walks in the forest and along the seashore have undoubtedly nourished the artist's inspiration, whose work reminds us that we are connected to nature.

Like a recurring motif, Hanne Friis presents us with the cycle of life, itself perpetually evolving with time, from the birth of budding forms to the cells created by the folds of matter, culminating in heavy wrinkles and ghostly draperies. The accidents of life are etched into the topography of the material. Animated by the movement imparted to them by the artist's body, these creations seem inhabited by an intrinsic presence, like a primordial life form, both wild and contained. Beyond their strange beauty, they provoke reflection fueled by their ambivalence. Suspended from walls or unfolding freely in space, they constitute a poetic metaphor for our existence.

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“CONTEMPORARY CRAFT, HANNE FRIIS” MUSEUM FÜR KUNST UND GEWERBE
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