JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING – MAYA FRODEMAN GALLERY is pleased to present Essentially Unbound, a solo exhibition of textile art by Dutch artist Marianne Kemp, on view at the gallery's downtown location from September 20th through November 3rd, 2024. An artist reception will be held on Friday, September 20th, from 5 to 7pm. Kemp will be in attendance. All are welcome.
Essentially Unbound, Marianne Kemp’s second solo exhibition with Maya Frodeman Gallery, finds the artist further exploring the technical intricacies of her unique chosen craft: woven horsehair. Using horsehair with varying combinations of other materials like raw plant fibers, and, most recently Korean Hanji paper and gold lurex, Kemp works with meticulous precision to create otherworldly forms that seem to organically morph, yet remain abstracted and enigmatic. The horsehair, the warp and the loom are the three fundamental elements of her practice, the starting points, and the primary and necessary tools. In weaving, a warp is a set of long, lengthwise fibers that run vertically up and down a textile, stretched in place on a loom before the weaving process begins; the weft is what is woven into the warp to create textiles, and where Kemp’s creativity takes flight. “I am a weaver because I am using a loom, and an artist, because what I do with the loom system,” Kemp says.
Kemp uses both traditional and nonconventional weaving techniques to create her three-dimensional environments through her unique practice of molding, knotting, curling and looping the sculptural horsehair fibers. Through properties unique to horsehair and other, largely organic materials, her woven works can appear shiny and smooth, organic and wild, or flexible and stiff. “Horsehair has its own characteristics. And for 24 years, I have wanted to show it in a different way. It keeps surprising me,” Kemp says. Her practice is very much grounded in her experimentation with technique. Works in Essentially Unbound, such as Dew (2024) and Late and Soon (2024), are united by Kemp’s exuberant use of color. This has brought joy and lightness into her studio practice—a practice that can often feel weighed down by the bounds of time. Kemp’s chosen materials and tools are profoundly time-consuming. The hours upon days upon weeks that go into her works beget that every decision Kemp makes- creative or technical- is made decisively. The visual weightlessness of this body of work, especially in the face of the time and planning that goes into each piece, also lends to the exhibitions’ title. Kemp uses the warp quite minimally in many of these works. Because of this, these works are literally less bound, and more sculptural. The result is most often otherworldly forms, as with Electric Move (2022) and Breaking the Silence (2023). Kemp’s technique anchors her materials, and with increasing experimentation, the works feel less and less bound by the textile art tradition and read more as innovative and cross-disciplinary sculpture.
When creating her works, Kemp looks inward for inspiration. As she sits in her studio, her brain twinkles with possibilities. “Behind my loom, I'm in this bubble, and the ideas are just coming. I can just pluck them from the air,” she marvels. Kemp’s ideas grow and morph as she spends hours upon hours behind her looms. Her intimate knowledge of and skill in weaving enables and fuels this creative process. Kemp’s work is less about weaving as a craft and more about the process and effect of creating texture and volume, zones of interest that invite the viewer in. Kemp’s works are truly a viewing experience, and, at first, an encounter with the alien. From afar, they can resemble paintings, tapestries, or alien structures, but as the viewer steps closer, the works become an intricate, active surface. The more experimental and unconventional Kemp’s work becomes, the more technical it is. When a new idea bobs to the surface of Kemp’s mind, it follows that then each centimeter must be study and planned, and every rhythm must be calculated to bring that idea to life. Her brain is equal parts artist and engineer. Kemp’s ability and expertise enables her creativity, just as her creativity fuels her technical practice.
Marianne Kemp was born in Woerden, and began sewing at the age of 13. Kemp’s early interest in textiles led her to study art at The Royal Academy of Art and Design in The Hague before moving to London to pursue her Master of Arts from the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. Upon completion of her Master’s, Kemp decided to stay in London and started working from Cockpit Arts Studios in Central London. In 2003 she returned to the Netherlands. In her studio she works with four different looms, each capable of different weaving possibilities. Kemp’s work has been exhibited in the United States, the United Kingdom, and across Europe, as well as in Seoul, South Korea. Her work has appeared in numerous publications in her native Netherlands and abroad, including magazines World of Interiors and Metiér, and books Transmaterial by Blaine Brownell and Contemporary Textiles by Drusilla Cole. Kemp lives and works in Zutphen, the Netherlands.
