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’ grew out of quiet observations of my immediate urban surroundings, in small moments of resignation and stillness. When the senses become sharpened, I try to make sense of what I see.

As a kind of ‘square meter fowler’, I became familiar with the entire bird population of my residential block during the pandemic. Two blackbirds, along with the tomtits and bluetits, became my regular companions. Woodpeckers came for their breakfast; finches, a wren, and a robin became winter guests in my tiny garden.
Over time, I became more closely acquainted with the lives of many 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, felt like a natural choice for expressing this intimate, close-to-home experience of nature. The brooches and pendants in this collection are small embroideries, made from tangled threads found in my 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