After Weeks of Yellow (I found a Friend...)
Solo Show
07.–20.09.2023, Plateau, Vienna

Slow methods and nontoxic textile dye processes take time, and so does nature. The artist seeks to invoke the pace of nature in her approach until it saturates her practice and intuition thereby transforming a process that might otherwise consider non-human existence on the basis of use-function alone.

Bettina Willnauer spent one month at TUO TUO Project Space & Residency in Joutsa, Finland. It was there she rediscovered and reflected on her relationship with nature and the possibilities of non-anthropocentric collaboration. Reflecting on transactional relationships – in which people interact with one another primarily for mutual benefit, rather than out of genuine affection or desire derived from personal connection – through a non-extractivist approach to collaboration, the artist blurs the lines of the human/nature binary. 

All of the textiles in this exhibition are naturally hand-dyed and created in close cooperation with sunlight. Light develops the colours, and then reduces or softens them over time. The textiles are evolving, their shades and vibrancy are fleeting. The artist sees the plants she was collaborating with as friends and partners with whom she has built a relationship and cared for. She celebrates the mercurial transformations which occurred throughout the dyeing process and as the artworks and their colours continue to unfold.

Photos: Lisa Edi
Text: KHD