Johanna Schmal

In the garden

Quilt series for Grosser Garten Gerswalde

The garden-series is overall inspired by nature and more particular by an existing venue: A former castle nursery in the middle of a beautiful landscape called „Uckermark“ which is located north of Berlin between the german capital and the baltic sea (www.grossergarten.de). Owned by a couple of filmmakers this place attracted lots of creatives in the last years, art exhibitions and workshops are just part of a constantly changing cultural program. It is a really atmospheric place and when I was invited to show my work at the old greenhouse - which was at that time also hosting a Japanese café - I knew I wanted to work with this particular site. I wanted to go on exploring the field of abstraction, letting myself inspire by natural forms and objects found in situ which I translated to large scale compositions. The colours were extracted from plants on-site like goldenrod, nettle leaves, coreopsis flowers, rosemary, rose hip or hollyhock as well as kitchen remains from the restaurant in the greenhouse such as onion skins, coffee or avocado cores. As a result the venue with its colors, time of the year, usage and forms imprinted in the quilts. The series reflects the idea of wholeness in the process and inseparable connection between this certain place with its characteristics and the artwork. The technique is a mixture of pieced and appliqué quilting. All visible joints are sewn by hand, what gives the quilts a traditional character with the hand-stiching and its little imperfections bringing a proper „handwriting“ to each piece - a process that is like drawing with the needle.