Christina Mosegaard (Denmark)

​

Warp, weft, stitch, thread 2021

​

CLOTH / DRAPERY / DRAPED FABRIC

 

Christina's portraits were shown in Gaze and her latest motif, the draped cloth, is shown in this exhibition.  The idea to paint draped cloth came to her after she had attended art history classes on the Baroque period at the university.  She read the famous text, The Fold, by French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, on Baroque philosopher Leibniz’ idea/vision of an eternal spiraling movement from the highest to the lowest and back; a perpetual spiraling between heaven and earth, between God and man. Deleuze saw the grandiose and often dramatic draperies in Baroque art as a depiction of that movement.

 

That fascinated Christina and it inspired her to create her own version of the fold, or the draped cloth.

 

The cloth has been depicted in the visual arts ever since antiquity – often combined with other significant symbolic elements, for example, in the genre of the classic still life.  Christina likes to zoom in on the cloth itself, so that it stands alone and becomes the main motif.

 

From a cultural-historical perspective, woven cloth has a history spanning  several thousand years. It has accompanied the human race in different civilizations throughout the ages, just as it has followed the individual human being from cradle to grave, from birth to death.

 

Cloth possesses a power of suggestion: is there something hidden behind the folds of cloth, or is there an empty space? Is something about to be revealed – or hidden - like a stage curtain being closed or pulled back.

 

Here, the cloth is arranged, so that each painting displays its own intense drama of folds in light and shadow.