MOTHER OF FIRE

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SIGNE EMDAL

January 2023
73 x 71 x 27 cm
Icelandic wool, mohair, merino wool, cotton warp
Unique piece
Solo show FANTASIA at Galerie Maria Wettergren 2023

/Text by Galerie Maria Wettergren

Signe Emdal wove her textile sculpture Majorca during an artist residency at Casa Balandra, Majorca, together with five other women artists from around the world. The artist considers Majorca as a blueprint of this experience that can be read directly as a visual diary. While weaving Majorca onsite in the sunlight, Emdal simultaneously studied the local Ikat textile-tradition, Fabric of Flames/Cloth of Tongues, and visited family-owned textile factories with 100-year-old factory looms. In Majorca, the Ikat technique was named Fabric of Flames, because the Majorcans interpreted the iconic Ikat-pattern as flames, or fire. The key-colors of the Majorcan Ikat are white and blue with yellow and orange combinations. At night, Emdal would meet with the other artists in front of the fireplace to discuss the current blazing condition of the world and share cultural meals, stories and music, all the while keeping the fire going. Traditionally, the fireplace is considered the “heart” of a household, where communities and families gather to access spirit worlds and make offerings. In ancient Rome, the sacred eternal flame was kept burning at The Temple of Vesta, run by women fire-keepers. Mother fire is a symbol of the source of all life. In the words of the artist: “Your heart energy is your life force, your burning flame, your passion, your spirit, your special glimmer, your ethereal mystic gateway, and the reason for being alive. Like flames in a fireplace, your heart needs oxygen to glow, thrive and expand. The oxygen is community, unconditional love and feeling seen by others. Fire is not always controllable; it is messy and creates chaos. But fire inside your heart - as a metaphor - is not dangerous, it is beautiful and wild, and needs to be set free!”