Mirjam Elburn (Germany) has a Master’s degree in Art History, Modern History and Economic and Social History, and a diploma in painting from a master class she did with the painter Sigurd Rompza in 2009.
Ever since, she has participated in numerous collective expositions in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Morocco. After three individual exhibitions in her homeland in 2010, 2016 and 2017, she also had the privilege to expose individually in the Gallery L’Endroit Indiqué in Montreal, Canada.
Solo show PRIVADO
«Privado» detail, 2018 (collection of black/white polaroids, dismantled)
The past is inherent in the material which is mostly used: It is material related to an abandoned building, material regarded as rubbish. The decay – and thereby the past – is the actual material.
I use old, time consuming, manual craft techniques – e.g. felting or sewing – to create objects made of found material. I am interested in the stories and the experiences behind the material – it is about the constant change, the unpredictable nature. I get in touch with all the images and stories within a material or space by tearing it apart and sewing or felting it anew together again.
The production of images is questioned by the disassembling of the three layers of which a Polaroid consists. The space is caught on the Polaroid, but through dismantling, cutting and enlargement a new visual space is created.
Since my residency in Morocco I worked on the theme of hiding and showing, public and private space and the ambivalence of both. There was a strong interest in curtains and the peeking into a window. During the stay in Airgentum Hoja de Ruta it changed by the impression of the rural area into a strong interest – caused by all the different garden fences – the mostly textile privacy protection – in the garden as a locked up, cherished and fluid transition of an intimate, private to a public space. The garden is a communicative space between. But the curtain between public and private space nowadays threatens to tear as one can read in the German publication Privacy, Garden and political culture by Lamnek/Tinnefeld (2003).
«You are a garden locked up, my sister» detail, 2018 (mixed media / found textile and wood, fabric, paint and cut out, sewed, sprayed and painted)
By the working process – dismantling the polaroids and cutting, layering, spraying and overpainting the fabric again and again, I also question the making of the image – how an image is created.
Instagram: @mirjamelburn
