Fragmented Stories
Mie Frey Damgaard
04.11.23-01.28.24
Mie Frey Damgaard is educated at Designskolen Kolding (DK) and Design Academy Eindhoven (NL). Since 2013, she has exhibited her works both here in Denmark and abroad. Alongside her artistic practice, Frey has worked as a designer and illustrator, working for, among others, Egmont Magasiner, Universal Music, Gyldendal, Ordskælv, and Københavns Universitet.
“The essence of my work is the humble material, paper. It is often thought of as flat and fragile, but paper has endless possibilities, both in terms of function and shape.”
Frey has always had an affinity for paper, as she started her career working as an illustrator years ago. Over time magazines and books piled up in her studio. The material lay unused but still held a lot of meaning as she herself had illustrated the pages. This is where the first steps in the development of her artistic practice began, forming a bridge between her different forms of work – working as a designer and as an artisan. Today, it is still essential for the artist that the paper has had a previous function, as she, in her practice, reuses her old illustrations and thereby gives it new form and life.
In her artistic process, she splits the paper apart, layer by layer, and creates new and surprising, three-dimensional elements. The pages are one by one, cut, clipped, and folded into firmly compressed, yet organic, dynamic constructions. The repetition and the layers rise into a new function: A shape, a work. The time-consuming processing of the pages can be seen in the endless layers, as you can still see bits of the paper's former function. The works evoke memories of longer cycles – the continuous transformation of the materials, from raw material to paper, then to trash and finally to new artworks. This gives insight into a changing, dynamic world in which paper and process are continuously challenged and where the original function of the material is celebrated.
The exhibition is supported by: Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond, Knud Højgaards Fond, Statens Kunstfond.
