Interviews
30/04/2020
Diana Orvning
Large textile pieces hang from the ceiling in floating formations. In soft movements, they seem to be travelling somewhere in the room, away from their original position. When we meet Diana Orving, she is in a temporary studio outside Stockholm.
She is in the middle of creating large, sculptural art curtains for a restaurant and needs headroom for her creations. Along the walls are paintings lined up, also covered in textiles. Many look finished, but in some frames you can only glimpse a final result. Together, the works begin to create an image, a small clue, of its creator.
– Textile art has always been a natural way for me to express myself. Both my parents have worked in the arts, so it was a language that I developed early on and has always been a natural part of me. A language I understand," says Diana Orving.
In the past, a large part of Diana's work was designing clothes and she still has a clothing label under her own name, but for the past few years she has been focusing more on textile art. It's an organic process that has led her here depending on her personal development and what she has been most curious about and wanted to explore.
– Fashion as a format is more restrictive and is often more about product than expression. My entrance to all creation has always been my interest in form and expression, the creative part.
Diana is driven by a natural curiosity. She follows her impulses and works with both improvisation and rehearsal. She lets her intuition guide her and rarely works from a predetermined end result.
– My work is an exploration, a search for an expression, a dynamic, a temperament. I seek understanding and follow my hands on a journey of discovery and along the way they make me associate with different things. I like to work abstractly but in what can be associative for me. She continues.
– I like an aesthetic that is both open and ambiguous. I never want to tell the viewer what the work represents, but I find it interesting to see what arises in the encounter. Both my encounter with the work but also other people's encounter with my works.
Perhaps it is simply the way the brain works, but there is something embodied in Diana's paintings and the encounter with her paintings feels very intimate.
– I want it to feel intimate, that there is some kind of contact. What is it that makes you read a gaze or sense a presence? I'm very curious about that. It's so natural to want to read the human form.
Diana beschrijft haar creatieve proces als één lange in- en uitademing, waarbij beide delen moeten bestaan en met elkaar moeten samenwerken. Ze omschrijft het als een afwisseling tussen periodes waarin ze zich vult met inspiratie en alle vormen van externe stimulatie toestaat om haar te inspireren. Tegelijkertijd zijn er periodes waarin ze voortdurend haar werk loslaat. Diana's designtaal is duidelijk zichtbaar. Abstract samengestelde textielpatronen die zich ontwikkelen naarmate je dichterbij komt en lijken te streven om uit hun kader te springen. Een beweging die niet beperkt kan worden tot het tweedimensionale. Terwijl ze over haar werk praat, laat ze haar hand over de werken gaan.
– Mijn gedachten hebben zich bewogen langs de lijnen van braille. De werken zijn een tactiele oppervlakte van lagen, beweging en verandering. Er is informatie, zelfs als je je ogen sluit. Ik heb in dubbele lagen met zijde gewerkt, waarbij ik sculpturale composities heb gecreëerd die ik vervolgens in olieverf heb geschilderd. Mijn schilderwerk in deze serie functioneert meer als een lichtinstelling. Het werpt licht op de vorm om deze te benadrukken. Ik zie het als een beeld in een ontwikkelbad in een donkere kamer. Opeens komt de vorm tevoorschijn.
Diana had in 2017 een solotentoonstelling bij Dusty Deco en heeft eerder individuele werken getoond bij Nordiska Galleriet.
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