Pages — Marthe Koetsier

textile tapestry
mixed media

I assemble and stitch textiles, wool, pigment, paper, yarns and threads together into tapestries, creating abstract still lifes. Throughout history, tapestries have been used for narrating grand stories and depicting heroic scenes. My tapestries are an altar for the everyday, and a revaluation of simplicity, tactility and imperfection.

I use scrap fabrics to create layered collages that show the quality, history or signs of use embedded in cloth. In my still lifes I explore material intelligence, the idea that simple everyday objects contain a unique human wisdom and shared experience. They can invoke recognition, association, symbolism, emotion, and meaning.

My works show the bowl and its kin: the jug, pitcher, mug, pot, and bowl. Contrary to the narrative often presented by history, the first cultural artifacts of prehistoric humans were tools for gathering, carrying, and preserving: the pouch, bag, pot, bowl, and basket. The heroic tale of survival — where early humans thrived as mighty hunters and warriors — shifts to the subtler, everyday aspects of life: cooperation, the domestic, gathering, and preservation.

In a series of tapestries and ceramic still lifes, I chose to enfold the bowl in fabric; an act of tenderness to create a deeper connection with this archetypal, everyday object. Throughout history, tapestries have served a vehicles for narrating grand stories and depicting heroic scenes. The series titled Ode to the Bowl serves as an altar for the everyday, and is a revaluatio of simplicity, tactility, imperfection, and humanity.

This tapestry was made with lace from the trousseau of the Van Den Bergh family, founders of margarine and soap imperium Unilever (1929). The women of these families worked at home, and spent many hours sewing pieces of lace and endlessly patching them. Crafting something fragile that would last generations, in this tapestry, their fabrics will last into the future.

De serie apron tapestries, geïnspireerd op het Japanse schort.
Het schort heeft een simpele vorm van functioneel textiel, maar
is tegelijkertijd een canvas.

The broom is a simple tool made and shaped by many different cultures and generations of people around the world. Its archetypal form is universal and stayed the same throughout its evolution. It is a unique piece of design, created by humanity.

And while it is an ordinary everyday object, it holds spiritual reference to the mystic and the sacret in cultures of all continents. It is believed to not only clean the home of dust, but to cleanse it from evil spirit and sin. It can even serve as a getaway for women to fly away from their domestic tasks, resulting in her image as a witch.

design icons, an ode to the broom places the age-old broom as a design icon on the wall. It is a universal symbol for simplicity, craft, tactility, spirituality, meaning and our shared human experience.