DAMSELFRAU, Aaves, 2020

DAMSELFRAU

I work with masks as autonomous works of art as well as action-objects. For me the mask is a place where different elements come together as situation. The work is about this place-situation, more so than the mask as a theme or category of form. The mask is a place.

I use found as well as self-produced material. I have used fine lace, carried by the nineteen century Norwegian author Camilla Collett, hair from two-hundred year old Japanese geisha hair pieces as well as everyday stuff, found in the street. I am an autodidact and find great pleasure in solving technical problems in the making of my work. A half improvised solving of a factual problem is for me more satisfying than a conventional take on a known material or technique.

I am led by the phantasms appearing in the process of the making and the materials themselves. These guide my decisions and inform the objects I make.

The becoming of character as play, in between the theatrical projective and the actual of the veil, has the effect that the masks equally are subject to the projection of others as well as my own. It is in this space that the objects exist and where I find new ones.


Damselfrau is a London-based Norwegian artist, who is inspired by materiality and traditional techniques to makes intricate and enigmatic masks.

www.damselfrau.com