TACTILE METAMORPHOSIS
Tactile Metamorphosis, 2022, Holmegaard Works
Tactile Metamorphosis
Holmegaard Works
February 2022
By Catherine Lefebvre, Curator
With the exhibition Tactile Metamorphosis, we have reached a synthesis in the works of the pictorial artist Maria Dubin, a synthesis evolved through intensive working periods throughout the last 5 years. When the time period is narrowed down to the last 5 years, it is because there is a clear connection between the exhibitions and series of works Dubin produces in this period. One powerful exhibition leads to the next and out of the reflections and the tactile work come new, pithy works.
One has to understand that Tactile Metamorphosis is indeed a continuation of the large works of decoupage from the series Take a Walk in the Park (Funen Art Academy, 2019 and Holmegaard Værk, 2020), which again arose from the large ink drawing and watercolours from the work Karen Blixen's Flowers (Karen Blixen Museum and in Tunis, 2018 and 2019).
In the time where the works have evolved and changed the complex of themes, new perceptions have supervened and the synthesis of that can be explored in this sumptuous exhibition. Maria Dubin has worked with textiles, with new and old textiles, which forms the basis for a new expression. To paint with textiles, to see, and to embrace the textile is a new way for Dubin to tell a story. An outmost personal story that becomes part of the environmental awareness our societies are in and we cannot ignore.
The textile paintings are made of textiles from 4 generations of Maria Dubin's family.
Maria's great-grandmother's embroideries, a 70s shirt, laces, bobbin laces, a velour cloth from the 1920s, sheets from the 1980s, a carpet bought in Mexico in the 1960s ... These textiles are put together to a new language; a very personal story becomes universal as we all recognise our own stories in the textiles.
The textiles become a guide for Maria Dubin. She follows them in expression and form and gives them new life. A moving new life that touches the beholder on recognition and remembrance. With great courage, Dubin wrestles with these weaved threads which have to find comfort in their new circumstances. Without flinching, the family treasures are integrated in their new contexts and gain new meaning. The textiles transfer from private to public sphere.
Patterns, laces, structures, threads, precious and ordinary materials, each representing their own time, are the raw materials in the expression of this series.
It is easy to sense that nature constantly plays a main part; we are witnessing something greater than the textiles.
When Maria Dubin paints with these textiles she creates new value out of the existing and presents us to both thought-provoking and immediately intelligible, tactile works in the wonderfully relevant world she creates.
As well as the black flower was transformed to be a part of a gigantic landscape that almost burst the framework, we know that these works are not solely about a family memory. The works frame a new understanding of our complex world where private memories are mixed with the reality our world and planet is in, where nature becomes a factor we have to address. Even the artist who with this exhibition not seeks to rise in rebellion, but with sensibleness takes her own family history into a constructive statement about the state of the world.
Rebellion?
Well, maybe after all. But the elegant way.