World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 258 - Dagmar Stap
World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 258 - Dagmar Stap
Dagmar Stap makes sculptures of packaging. She embroiders those sculptures. Many products that you find in the Chinese toko, such as a pack of instant noodles or a can of coconut milk to even a receipt. Dagmar plays in her work with the worthless and valuable, waste and art.
I visit her in The Palace (Het Paleis) in Groningen, a café on the Boterdiep. Her studio is in the block behind it. Earlier I saw her work in Gallery Fleur & Wouter in Amsterdam, including packaged Asian products under a bell jar.
Embroidery
"There is so much design in packaging," she says. “They are consumer products. You buy it, eat it, and immediately throw away the packaging. You don't do anything with it. I want to capture the beauty of the packaging with material that will last. ”
At home, her mother knitted and crocheted, and her sister often sat behind the sewing machine. “In my family, manual work is appreciated, but I did not embroider myself. But fabric and thread appealed to me. I made embroidery my own way, not with cross stitches, but with my own stitches. I paint with thread, as it were. ”
Toko
At the Minerva Academy in Groningen, she was studying Illustration. "Drawing and painting. I already made a lot of packaging at the Academy. I was looking for a technique that you could feel it. A 2D packaging was incorrect, I wanted to completely recreate it and put it together so that it became 3D.” She discovered a good surface: wool felt: "That knots together, much better than cotton, that has small holes."
Her teachers couldn't do much with it. “They were used to 2D, it was difficult for them to judge. I went more into the autonomous art side, but I did graduate in Illustration.” The half year she had to complete her graduation work was too short. “I made packaging from Asian products. They appealed to me, more color and illustration than with the products of the Dutch supermarket. I had never been to a toko (Asian shop) before, but took the step with my friend, who is half Indonesian. Embroidery turned out to be a time-consuming technique. I had not really finished my work and after I graduated from the Academy I continued. ”
Key work
She has now graduated for a year and has had several exhibitions with her work. At This Art Fair in Amsterdam's Beurs van Berlage, at Galerie Fleur & Wouter and in September at Galerie Sign in Groningen. “It is indeed intensive. "
Does she have a key work, a work that meant a new turn? She has, and even two. “My first key work was my version of a 2D cellophane from a Skittles packaging (colored candies with an S on them). My second key work was a Yum Yum instant noodle pack. Student food, very recognizable. It was the first time I went 3D. People get nostalgic about it. ”
Gallery Sign
We go into the city to Galerie Sign, where she exhibits with three other artists in the exhibition "Some things to talk about". In the basement space, her works are laid out on the ground as waste. There are banana peels, black garbage bags with a yellow ribbon. Golden Diamond fruits in strong water, a filter bag with coffee grounds, Hot Females, cinnamon candies - “The packaging is nice, but they don't taste good.” - Dorina chocolate in golden packaging. And everything embroidered and sewn.
In the "Hang Youth corner" are cigarette butts, a Red Bull can, a joint, a lighter, a torn condom package (red), juice coming out of a discarded package. Everything also embroidered. "People still missed a frikandel bun."
And in the other corner fries sticking out of a McDonalds box, a blue tax envelope, a tea bag with the packaging, Cornbits, corn kernels, a Filipino snack, instant noodles and a receipt with also something hand-written in it. “I spent another month on the Yum Yum. But it is getting faster and faster. If you are working on it, you will make a new discovery with each subsequent packaging. ”
On the floor
She also learns about the best presentation. “It was under a glass bell jar during my final exams. At This Art Fair I wanted to do it differently and it came on a shelf as a kind of shop. People handled it casually. That was not the intention either. At Fleur & Wouter things went under the bell jar again. Now at Sign it lies on the floor as waste. At the opening, people sat down and watched quietly. ”
Dagmar Stap grew up in Ny Altoenae in the province of Friesland, not far from the Wadden Sea. “Several artists lived there. They still do that. I found it special and attractive. I didn't know them, the distance was too great, but it still attracted me so much that I later chose the Art Academy. ”
“Then I wanted to live in an old farm just like them and paint all day. Now I live in the city and I embroider almost every day. ”
Images
1) Vifon, 2) Vifon backside, 3) Skittles blue, 4) Red Bull Durex, 5) Dagmar Stap portrait, 6) Loquats, 7) Lettuce, 8) group, 9) group copy, 10) bicycle, 11) durex
