Gesine Hackenberg Of Birds and Clouds

Blue Tit, 2022
5,2 x 4, 5 x h 1,3 cm

Birds and clouds as subjects in art are both as old as mankind exists, and often their artistic elaboration tips at kitsch. Yet they tell of human desires and other realities. Birds are used to symbolize the sky and the air, imagination and freedom, dreams and joy of life. They represent the soul and the spirit leaving the body after death.

The series ‘Of Birds and Clouds’ stems from the observations of my immediate urban surroundings in the small moments of resignation. When the senses become sharpened, I tries to make sense of what I see.

As a ‘square meter fowler’, I got to know the entire bird population of my residential block during the pandemic. The two blackbirds as well as the tom- and bluetits became my special friends. Like that, the woodpeckers regularly come to get their breakfast, and the finches, the wren and the robin stay as winter guests in the garden.
With time, I also became more and more acquainted with other city birds.

Another source of inspiration became the clouds and their formations, fuelled on the one hand by meteorological observations and on the other hand by copper engravings by old masters. Like Romantic landscape painters, I allow impressions to directly flow into my hands and make a translation of a certain sentiment into material.

Textiles as a domestic material seemed appropriate for this way of experiencing nature so close to home. The brooches and pendants in this collection consist of small embroideries, made of entangled threads from grandmother’s sewing box or metal spiral threads from the world of gold embroidery.

Mossels from the river Amstel become cloud formations on the body.

Materials: Purl wire, pearl purl wire, various fibers from my grandmother’s sewing box, textile, swan mosselss, silver, remanium