about CAMILLA HOWALT

I am a visual ARTIST & WRITER with a particular interest in the human condition, especially from a female perspective: Women in history and how they were squashed / objectified / petrified / crushed / raped - how they raised up / overwon / reinvented themselves.

My work is about analysing this condition and responding to it with analogies from my own life, through affect (colour), elegance (composition), and beauty (aesthetic).

However, to narrow it down a little and as a way to show you a way into how I create and structure my work, I often go through a research period, then a haptic experience of textures, colours and materials. 

From that follows the techniques, of which I like the aesthetic of repetition which mirrors the idea of practicing. I especially use the many nuances of red but it really does depend. 

I have a long history with psychoanalysis, 27+ years, of which the Lacanian theory with its focus on language, schemas and structures inspires me deeply and coheres with my own findings of the way the mind structures and restructures itself. I mention this because my compositions usually have a footing in the making or creation of identity.

I grew up in a household with architects, which means that architecture as a way of exploring the process of creation with its strong concrete and metaphorical emphasis on beauty, function and materials, was given to me by birth.

Last, but not least, the idea of map making, initially done by the human species to find Paradise within the confines of the world, shows a curiousity of humans which I admire, but which also can be devastatingly destructive - I work with understanding this knife edge.

My processes entails working as if one was wearing blinders - letting the fingers do the talking - tending to, quarreling and negotiating with faults and errors, the absurd, repetition and the concrete - thank god - you are enabling the kind of creative process which has the possibility of paving the way for many through its bold moves into the unknown parts of the human emotional and psychological universe.

PS I was born in Copenhagen, in the autumn equinox, in the year of the f****** Paris revolution.