Vera Boele-Keimer

Vera Boele-Keimer RWA

Gewebe 1, 2023
Zerkal paper, acrylic paint, cotton fabric, wood, thread

Gewebe 2, 2023
Zerkal paper, acrylic paint, cotton fabric, wood, thread

Gewebe 3, 2024
Zerkal paper, acrylic paint, cotton fabric, wood, thread

The title of these drawings links these works on paper to my thinking about weaving. The German word “Gewebe” (= fabric) contains the root word “weben” (= weaving). The process of making them bears parallels to weaving in that a repetitive movement (folding horizontal and vertical lines) is used to create a grid matrix that suggests not only a fabric-like structure, but also softens the paper to become more fabric-like. 

The white lines form an irregular pattern along the ridges of the folds. They are not drawn, not added to the surface, but reveal the paper substance itself, occasionally appearing slightly fuzzy, fibrous. The pattern is not regular, nor has it a repeat, nor is it planned. It is an organic development of semi-systematic decision making, based on an intuitive need for regularity and pace of making, mixed with thinking about threads and how they might appear and disappear in a woven fabric.

Merging organisation, process, thought, imagination, pace, and materiality our attention is drawn to the imperfect but also liberating reality of making.

Vera Boele-Keimer is an artist working primarily with and on fabric and paper. Her grid-based compositions explore the relationship between surface and ground, merging languages of modernism with its ample use of grids and that of textile construction, which allows a functional thinking about coherence, texture and making. In her works system-based methodologies meet with intuition of making. 

Born in Germany, Vera completed a degree in History and English before studying Fine Art at the Academy of Art in Münster. She moved from Berlin to Bristol in 2004 and completed an MFA at Bath Spa University in 2013. Her work is regularly exhibited in group and solo exhibitions both in the UK and abroad, and her work is held in public and private collections.

Vera was elected as Academician at the Royal West of England Academy of Arts (RWA) in 2012. She has been invited to artist residencies in Finland, Norway and Senegal. In 2024 she spent two months as artist in residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut, USA. Vera is programme lead for the BA (Hons) Fine Art and Contemporary Arts Practice at Bristol School of Art.

@veraboelekeimer

veraboelekeimer@gmail.com

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Edmund Harriss on ‘Gwebe 1, 2 and 3’ by Vera Boele Keimer

The grid is a wonderful abstract structure, from pixels on a screen to integer lattices to one of its oldest forms, weaving, as studied here. Both within and outside mathematics it gives an underlying structure on which worlds can be created or studied. In these artworks the worlds are simple, but explore the space between order and disorder as the edges of the grid are revealed or hidden. As I studied the patterns there were enticing moments of seeing structure emerge and almost shimmer into existence before vanishing. 

I was also reminded of the mathematics of percolation, where an underlying structure, such as a grid, can have edges that can be open or closed. Connected open edges create paths between different parts of the structure. Even when the individual edges are open or closed completely at random, the question of whether two arbitrarily chosen positions are connected shows remarkable structure. Though different to the patterns shown in these pieces this is another example of how order and emerge from disorder and vice versa.

Edmund Harriss is a mathematician, artist, teacher and maker at the University of Arkansas. He holds a joint position between the Department of Mathematical Sciences and School of Art.