In partnership with the House of Fine Arts network, Yellow Korner Gallery is presenting Anne von Freyburg’s provocative ‘Papillotage’ series during Monaco Art Week, a collection that challenges traditional depictions of femininity.
Yellow Korner on Avenue Henri Dunant is one of 18 local art addresses participating in the 2024 edition of Monaco Art Week, and the gallery has teamed up with the internationally focused House of Fine Arts (HOFA) to host Anne von Freyburg’s debut as an exhibiting artist in the Principality for the occasion.
“I feel very grateful to be exhibiting my series during the Monaco Art Week as this is an incredible opportunity to show my work to a different audience and spread my message of continuing to break boundaries,” says von Freyburg, a Dutch artist based in London who has already collaborated several times with HOFA.
von Freyburg holds an MFA from Goldsmiths (2016) and a BA in Fashion Design from ArtEZ Arnhem. Her catalogue of works, some of which were featured in the 2022 Tapestry Triennial at the Central Textile Museum in Lodz, Poland, has earned her the Robert Walters UK New Artists Award (2021) as well as prominent exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery.
She is currently making waves in the art world with her latest series, which seeks to disrupt traditional portrayals of women in art. Furthermore, her work, which centralises women as subjects rather than objects, breaks away from the historically idolised female forms based on Venus, the goddess of love and beauty.
“I’ve been observing how women always think about how they are behaving, how they look, what they are eating, and all these things come from society and affect psychology,” she tells Monaco Life. “I want to free myself and women from these limitations.”
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In this ‘Papillotage’ series, von Freyburg boldly uses colour, shape and medium, rejecting the confines of restrictive frames or canvases. This new body of work is, in her words, disruptive and seductive. It showcases her ambitions to challenge societal views on women and the female aesthetic.
She explains, “This idea of femininity and how femininity is constructed also limits women. This is why I chose these materials and mediums, as textiles and sewing are linked with craft and the female history of sewing, which fits that notion of historical oppression of women.”
Her large-scale textile paintings are reconstructed Rococo portraits created from a blend of tapestry and contemporary fashion fabrics. von Freyburg begins with acrylic ink and then translates her paintings into hand-stitched fabrics that give the pieces an almost corporeal presence.
“Rococo art is made for the male gaze, so what I wanted to do is make art for the female gaze. But also, it’s not just about women, it’s about people in general who are restricted by societal concepts, so my work talks about gender,” von Freyburg shares with Monaco Life.
Her works are also intended as critiques of the excesses of throwaway fashion, selfies and consumerism. By conceptually merging fine art and applied art, she aims to blur the boundaries between these concepts, prompting viewers to question the world around them.
To see more from the evening, click on the images below:
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