The pieces above were created for two exhibitions in August 2011: ‘Momentum’ in Craft in the Bay, Cardiff, which brought together a very interesting group of artists who all use digital technologies at some point in the creation of their work. All also shared a passion for the ‘hand-made’ and the beauty of the artefact. For this exhibition I focused on the laser, aiming to create works of ever increasing intricacy. The other exhibition ‘Drawing, Permanence and Place’ was exhibited at the Kunstverein Coburg in Germany. The main focus was on drawing adding permanence with the richness of vitreous enamel. It was a wonderful exhibition with an exciting breadth of works by very varied artists. I am sure there will be more from Elizabeth Turrell and Jessica Turrell who also took part. Two catalogues accompanied the exhibitions with major essays and statements by the artists. Should anybody like to see all the images and texts, please e-mail me and I can send you a PDF. Here I concentrated on drawing in relation to the water jet cutter.
Questions relating to place, location and by extension dislocation and movement, are a continuous focus in my work. I am interested in the space ‘in-between’, speaking of distance, borderland and a positioning of identity. Language occupies an important part in this inquiry, the idea of the ‘translator’ and the use of the ‘mother tongue’ as orientation, home and dwelling rather than physical location.
It is the fragmentary nature of a nomadic existence that underlies much of my work, the fragile theoretical armature by which all kinds of personal narratives and pictorial elements are joined together from many sources, written and visual as well as from direct observations.
Both recent exhibitions took as their starting point Walter Benjamin’s writing and, in particular, the ‘Arcades Project’. For Benjamin the Paris arcades represented one of the fundamental early examples of the continuous interpenetration of inner and outer space. It is this simultaneity of outside and inside, past and present, found elements and texts that inspired my wish to research his writing. I spent some time in Paris walking, observing, photographing, sketching and generally gathering visual imagery.
There is still much to do and to discover. I am thinking of naming my project for Phoenix ‘Heat Mapping’, further exploring Walter Benjamin, but also working more with the laser and engraving the enamel after firing and stoning, taking further my experiments such as in the image below.
Finally, an image of me sitting in front of my ‘pin wall’. I cut everything in paper first before committing to the laser or water jet.
And my workshop
Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
