Anja Reinshagen

ARTIST STATEMENT

We are all cut from the same cloth. My artistic journey really started with the death of my mother. Reding her obituary I marveled at all the exceptional things my mother had done, how many times she had re-invented herself. At 45 at 60, even shortly before her death at 80. I thought I am cut from the same cloth as her and applied to AUARTS the same year (2018). Fiber has always been speaking to me: an avid knitter since I am five, I had started a few years back to dye my own wool. Since my brother’s suicide 2014, I have knitted a shawl now for 50 times. I spend as many as 42 hours on this intricate design, this was my way of mourning, meditating and healing. At AUARTS I became interested in weaving and felting, as well as cloth dyeing with natural colours. Reduce, reuse and recycle has been a mantra of mine for many years and is and will be an integral part of my art practice: My collection includes unique wearables made from reused and redyed old clothing. I combine old and new fibers by weaving them into new cloth, dye ethically sourced and organic cotton scarves with indigo and other natural dyes, and dye thrift store fabrics and sew into new clothes. As reusing and up-cycling becomes more important in our world, I am dedicated to embellishing the old with new life.