Beate Gegenwart
Beate Gegenwart is a maker and curator who lives and works on the Gower Peninsular near Swansea in the United Kingdom. Originally from Germany, she studied at the University of Wales, Cardi and the University of the West of England, completing two Master degrees.
Drawing, mark-making, the explicit connections between material, process and maker as well as an emphasis on concept and idea are all central to her practice as an artist.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally and curated numerous exhibitions, touring to North America, France, The Netherlands and Germany. Her work is held in both national and International collections.
‘To depart from one’s own language of origin, to be able to acknowledge that ‘the source moves about’, to fare like a foreigner in this language, and to return to it via its traveling fragments, is to learn how to be silent and to speak again, dierently.’
(T. B. Jelloun, Trinh T, Minha, 1994, p. 11, Travellers’ Tales)
The question of whether language produces me or I who produce language has occupied me for a while. Originally from Germany and now living in the United Kingdom, I move seamlessly from one language to the other, hybridising both and sometimes ignoring the rules. I carry the fragments here, there and everywhere.
The bowl has become an important vehicle for me to express stored thoughts, writing and feelings. Usually my work revolves around pieces for the wall; however, the bowl contains, cups, gives a sense of gentle containment in an uncertain, changing world. It is a quiet archive of thoughts, stories and metaphors that can move from one form to another. These bowls speak of movement, absence and rhythms. The insides are inscribed with ne lines and they have a matt, abraded surface; the outsides are a beautiful, rich, glassy black.
