The book
The big topic of sustainability is present in the smallest detail of Judith Mundwiler’s textile art. Tenuous silk fabrics are combined with firm metal, forgotten tea bags or dumped sweets wrapper are layered to thin ribbons and combined artfully. By that she manages to imply an effect of depth without losing the lightness or transparency. This is of particular importance because she also included soul-stirring and sad themes in her latest works. The book also includes the profound contemplations on life, farewell and death of the poems of Susanne Ernst.
She searches her textile way to express herself in small-sized, detailed and grid-like objects. Powerful, moving and personally important issues and themes she expresses in large formats. For that she chooses fabrics which she prints on, labels, laminates, melts or frays before she combines them to multilayered and translucent tapes by machine or hand embroidery. A multitude of such tapes she then layers on top or next to each other.
In her work. the Swiss artist confronts her textile art with adequate inspiration from nature. On her walks she repeatedly discovers that sun, wind, rain, heat and coldness have »shaping techniques« on natural and also human-made objects, which are stunningly similar to the techniques she uses in her artworks. Metal rusts, colour peels off, bark bursts open, larva feed on wood and moss and lichen settle on surfaces.
She juxtaposes these fascinating similarities here. Close-ups which stress the richness of material are combined with poetic poems to a artistic synthesis.
About the Author
Ever since her childhood, the examination of textile material has been an important part of Judith Mundwiler’s leisure activities. Animated and inspired by her mother’s sewing, knitting and crochet handwork, she began creating objects, dresses for puppets and eventually even own dresses. During her 4-year training programme as a textile craft teacher she learned the professional handling of diverse textile and non-textile materials and techniques. The inner urge to visualise her feelings and thoughts through textile art grew stronger over the years. In 2002 she was given the opportunity to present her works to a broad international audience in France, in Val d’Argent during the European Patchwork Meeting.