Tilleke Schwarz

Tilleke Schwarz (1946)

My work is a mixture of graphic quality, content and fooling around. The humor in my work is typical for my Jewish background: a mixture of a laugh and a tear. Folk art and daily life are great sources for inspiration. I use mixed media with a focus on embroidery on linen and on drawings and paintings.

My work can be understood as a kind of visual poetry. It is a mixture of contemporary influences, graffiti, icons, texts and traditional images from samplers. The embroidery contains narrative elements. Not really complete stories, with a beginning, a storyline, and an end. On the contrary, the narrative structures are used as a form of communication with the viewer.

The viewer is invited to decipher connections or to create them. The viewer may assemble the stories and to produce chronological and causal structures. Actually the viewer might step into the role of the "author". It can become a kind of play between the viewer and me. The work also relates

to the history of humanity that is determined through stories.

 

Facts

Born: December 10, 1946, Winterswijk, The Netherlands
Education: H.B.S. – B (Dutch highschool)
USA Highschool, near San Francisco (as an exchange student)
Academy for Arts and Industry, Enschede (1965 t/m 1967) general arts and textile design
Free Academy for Modern Art, The Hague (1985 tot 1990): Textile-experiments and painting

My art activities were until October 2004 combined with a professional career for the Dutch national government (policy development).