Geertje Brandenburg, is a Dutch artist who works with installation, collage, text, and craft.

In artworks built up from her extensive visual archive, Geertje questions the versatility of identity. As someone named after several people Geertje interweaves herself with others, presenting a version of the truth that fluctuates between myth and a half-remembered moment. Geertje’s work is rooted in collage and the archive, photos taken from their original
context are combined with text written by the artist herself. Through appropriating materials from the archive and combining them with personal stories Geertje creates a world in which
she is both her grandmother and an unknown woman in a photo. Her sister’s dreams become her own, and words written by a stranger become notes in her own diary.

This fluid approach to the autobiographical makes Geertje’s work feel like a dream that you are trying to remember, but can’t quite puzzle together.
I spent my time at the Fish Factory reframing my practice – coming from my own familiar studio environment, Stöðvarfjörður and Iceland were a major change – and I responded by walking, observing, searching and finding, then bringing those experiences and found objects back to the sewing machine.

Sewing as a practice/craft has always been one which I banned to the home, a space for myself to relax and make without the pressure of making art.
Being so isolated from my own home and studio it actually felt really nice to turn back to this craft in order to create my work.
The sounds of the tracing paper being cut, sewn, and built into the sculpture became a soundtrack to my time at the fish factory, merging with the waves crashing into the fjord and the wind carving a patch between the mountains.
I’ve been researching the merging of medical and religious rituals, how many religious rituals come from a medical understanding, and how many medical rituals we still use today are actually done in reassurance, not medical necessity. In Iceland I searched for local herbal remedies and religious myths, where do they meet, and where do they diverge?

These findings all come together into this paper gate I spent my month sewing, an architectural element which is made to sever, but shows both sides of the coin at once.

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/geertje.brandenburg/
website
https://geertjebrandenburg.com/

The portrait image was taken by Marcelle Bradbeer; https://www.instagram.com/marcelle_bradbeer/