Maria Zahle
b. 1978, Denmark
“Maria Zahle’s works are made with a small range of materials: woven linen, wool, natural dyes, metal bars and wire, stones, crayon, hand-coloured paper, and archival tape. Many of the materials, importantly, have been sourced or cre- ated by the artist before she puts them to use in one of her objects. Zahle taught herself how to weave, learning a few patterns and traditional techniques, and produces her own fabrics. Perhaps more unusually, she also learned how to make dyes, sometimes growing the plants whose roots or leaves she boils and ferments. Colour, which we usually appreciate as a visual component of an art work, has always been seen by Zahle as a material. One could even say that the sculptural process begins, for her, in planting and picking, cooking and cooling of dyes.”