Artist Statement

Carolyn Kallenborn

All of my work, whether it is a garment, a sculptural piece, or an installation, is about transformation - passing through one state into another. Although garments are something we often take for granted we can change how we feel or how others respond to us by what we have on.  Because they are so personal and intimate, garments have great potential for artistic sculptural expression, individual and ritual transformation. In recent work, I have been interested in expressing my emotions and perceptions of my own reality through my pieces.  The garments and sculptures reflect my feelings of constriction and release, of sensuality and rebirth, of being weighted by the burdens of responsibilities and the desire to just slip away.

I often use fiber and metal because I am interested in the visual paradox that happens by combining opposing characteristics within the same piece while preserving a sense of harmony and unity. My goal is to create pieces in which the elements not only exist side by side, but they interact, influence and enhance each other. In some pieces fiber is dyed and manipulated to look and move like molten metal and in others metal is transformed to look or move like fiber. 

I am intrigued by that moment when one thing becomes something else; the moment when the door opens a crack and you can see beyond where you are, that moment when a liquid becomes a solid, when weak becomes strong, when tension becomes release, or when a dream becomes a reality.

 

 

My visual inspirations are drawn from these moments of transformation – melting points, open doors, metamorphosis, bursting seed pods, shed skins…  The process of making is about transforming materials into their opposite – metal becomes fabric, fabric becomes metal, light becomes heavy which then becomes light. The making of the object itself transforms an idea from a vague thought or feeling in my head into a physical thing that I can touch, see, and then understand. By meditation on that moment of change, I can keep in mind that there is always possibility.