Variable Lines
Variable Lines
Christine Mauersberger
October 4—November 31, 2019
Opening reception Friday, October 4, 2019 5-7 pm
Christine Mauersberger is an American artist who produces complex mark-making narratives in multiple media: paintings, embroidery, and installation works. Her work is featured in private and public collections and has been exhibited and published internationally including The Millennium Court Arts Centre in Ireland and in the Biennale du Lin in Quebec, Canada. She has taught and lectured at numerous locations from throughout the USA and Canada, to Switzerland.
Artist's Statement
I work primarily—although not exclusively—with textiles and stitching. For me, the process of mark-making, whether stitched, drawn, painted, or printed, is my way of making a physical artifact of the progression of time. Each stitched or drawn line is deliberate and are lines of conversation between my hand and my brain. They can be considered performative in that the movement of thought is re-enacted in my hands. Hand-stitching and drawing are time-based mediums and therefore traces of mental movement flow onto the substrate of cloth, paper, or found objects onto which I’ve selected to work. Every mark enables a visual map of thinking with my hand to emerge forth to reach into space and transcend the idea of time; often these marks are structurally map-like therefore I consider my works to take the final form of a personal map. When I make an installation, the emphasis moves away from intimate intellectual moments into using materials that will relate to my hand stitching but are not derived from the same processes. The materials themselves have an ability to transform from being stiff and flat to actually flowing and responding to air movements in the room. The emphasis is no longer in the minutia, but in the larger immediate visceral effect one receives upon viewing an installation. It is my hope that my work captures not only the reality of time passing, but also the distillation of what remains when the unimportant parts of life have been removed.
At the heart of this project are questions about loss and occupation. Together, the words and the images will invite the readers and viewers to reflect upon their own relationship with land.