‘Marie Louise – Louise Marie – Double Identity’, 2010
Old girl dresses, plastic (clothing) coil wire, red embroidery yarn
Technique: Machine and hand sewing, hand embroidery
Dimensions: 60 cm L* 40 cm W * 12 cm H
‘Marie Louise – Louise Marie – Double Identity’ translates the story of 1 little girl who struggles with her identity. Her fragile mental state creates 2 separate girls. Marie Louise is alternately transformed into Louise Marie, with only a slight difference in their names and appearance, they are 2 totally different personalities. Marie Louise as well Louise Marie are individual entangled in an emotional roleplaying game with each other.
‘Disfigured’ 2017
Plaster cotton bandage ( model shoulders and knees), wax, coloured yarn and (pillow) stuffing
Technique: crochet
Dimensions: Knee-leg short piece: 57 cm L * 20 cm W * 12 cm H
Knee-leg long piece: 75 cm L * 11 cm W * 10 cm H
Shoulder-arm short piece: 48 cm L * 11 cm W * 12 cm H
Shoulder-arm long piece: 75 cm L * 12 cm W * 12 cm H
‘Disfigured’ shows 1 pair of arms and 1 pair of legs. Both pairs look extremely vulnerable due their imperfections and disfigurements.The disrupted physical expression as well the heavily loaded content of these limb-sculptures; are constantly balancing between a sense of repulsion and attraction. The pure and intact shoulders and knees represent a realistic as well aesthetic image towards the rest of the disfigured parts of the limbs.
Annelies Slabbynck was born in 1968 in Belgium.
At the age of 17 she starts an art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Aalst (B). During two years she studies Decorative Arts and Crafts. She continues her art studies at the Higher Institute of Visual Arts, Sint-Lucas in Ghent (B), where she focuses on the mayor of ceramics.
Her first encounter with China takes place in 1997, where she stays during a four months period at the Central Academy for Art and Design in Beijing. During the following years she’ll travel and live between Belgium and China; Shanghai.
Besides working with clay, the introduction of textiles, the use of collected antique garments as well experimenting with sewing techniques, will take a more prominent place within her art oeuvre.
Till present her work in the form of textile / ceramic and mixed media art; features in national and international galleries and museums.
From June 2015 till this moment she lives back in Belgium; in her hometown Ghent.
Besides my fascination for the complexity of the human body and its identity search; my creative inspirations are grown out my own life experiences as well my interest in historical resources of the medical and fashion/textile world. Themes such as loss, sickness, birth and dead are discreetly weaved into intimate layers which are omnipresent in my artistic journey.
My textile artwork researches mainly the female body and it’s related intimate body issues; going from clinical imperfections and diseases to identity issues. The social position as a woman/young girl in the society is often strongly portrayed in my art oeuvre.
I prefer the aesthetics and sobriety of (old) textile objects which on the one hand ‘unwrap’ the remains of a time era and it’s realisation of wonderful craftsmanship. On the other hand this manual work characterises patience, rituals and tradition for me; which relates directly to universal characteristics of the human condition within its various cultures.
Annelies Slabbynck