Zodiac Pack Drawing

My work consists of drawings, installations and sculptures. Since I graduated from the HISK, I have been exhibiting my work nationally and internationally. In my oeuvre one can detect a feeling for the absurd setting but often countered by an uncanny, almost sinister atmosphere. My work can be regarded as a wunderkammer, a hybrid oeuvre that raises questions about the artificiality of nature, transgression and metamorphosis. An important aspect of my work is "˜the marvellous' as described by art historian Hal Foster: "˜A state at once otherwordly, secular and psychic'. I seek to achieve a sort of re-enchantment of a disenchanted world. My latest drawings are inspired by masks and the monstrous. The drawings depict portraits in metamorphosis, one can see a vague resemblance of a human indentity transforming into an unrecognizable state or a more animalistic nature. These monsters exceed boundaries, reconfigure forms and are always horrible and wonderful at the same time. They exist as a state of becoming, rather than as a false marker of fixity. In this way these works use this monstrous form as both image and process. The representation of monsters for the articulation of identities outside the normative. In 2010 I started working on an extensive experiment with sculptures containing live spiders, this series is called "˜Myths of the Near Future'. The spiders complete the sculptures with their webs over a course of several weeks. After this process, the objects are taken out of the terrarium and are presented as sculptures. This experiment is the beginning of a project with the goal of making an environment where in one aspect is not fixed, in this case a natural aspect: the spiders. INTERVIEW WITH ASTRID WEGE Astrid Wege: Your work on display in Düsseldorf, Myths of the near Future (2011), could be described as a hybrid of a museum showcase and a lab/terrarium: positioned inside the vitrine there is a bough with golden geometric, crystalline structures attached at the ends of its branches. The showcase serves as a habitat for a house spider which is expected to spin its webs around the geometric forms and thus become part of the artwork.