This work is part of a series that has the focus at this moment: Maps of love and pain.
Saminte Ekeland draws with thread. Her works are in essence embroidery drawings. The many-layered artwork of Saminte Ekeland is characterized by its chemical marriage between material, style, and content. The ‘canvas’, or carrier, is a transparent artificial fiber: polyester. She works with thick polyester quality material as a carrier for her embroidery drawings.
In this sense the ‘canvas’ in itself is an important part of what she wants to bring across; it is always a canvas–in–the–world. As paintings or drawings could be viewed as a seduction to the viewer to see through the eyes of the artist, Ekeland’s use of see-through thick plastic as the base of her work makes it a literal window to the world.
Her manner of expression has evolved in the last 20 years from abstract collages using paper cut-outs fixed with presentation pins to embroidery drawings of figurative images on artificial fiber. The images are made of thread and nylon stockings, black plastic, x-ray marker, sometimes also making use of copper-, silver- and goldthread. The latter is the least expected and hardest to use for embroidery. One work might start off with drawing in acrylic. Sometimes she just starts straight ahead drawing with yarn. The first step after deciding the subject is always making small sketches.
The source material is either a private image or a photograph she carefully selected from the current or gone by news media.
The form is also driven by the content of her work. In a certain way, the form reflects the content. Or makes a contrast. The technique and material could be sensed as vulnerable and fluid, whereas the subject or theme can be very sharp and harsh.
Ekeland describes herself as an individual anarchist. A characteristic and attitude towards life she was always subconsciously aware of, but came to surface after being grasped by ‘Der Einzige und sein Eigentum’ (1845, Max Stirner). Ekeland: ‘I see this work of Stirner as an ecstatic masterpiece. It is one of the most extreme books ever written. His iconoclastic egoism is exhilarating and his intellectual precision is splitting, his expression harsh and challenging: ‘Make yourself be heard!’ ‘