iris frère

The narrative arc of my artistic approach is the communication of intimacy and more precisely the search for its materialization. I exteriorize the elusive through the realization of textile shelters through the gesture as a space for this monstration/confession and where the textile would serve as a support to materialize this intimacy, told and constructed by the movement of the hand and the thread intertwining. With textiles, I give the beginning of an answer, and this in a metaphorical way. I concretize what the intimate represents for me and I represent a certain sensitivity. Above all, I want to talk about the gesture, the gesture of the hand. A precious tool for me, because it is with my hands that I give substance to my textile pieces, and above all I convey what I want to say through lace or knitting. Where the word no longer needs to explain what is happening because the realization itself traces the hours spent at work to make it. I don't want to praise this one, but I want to share with you the sensitive side of the gesture, the poetry that can emerge from it. More than a tool, it's an intelligence. It is at the limit of the unconscious because even if the gesture is dictated by a thought lodged higher in my brain, there is always a moment when the hand regains control, in the sense that by constantly repeating the same gesture, appear a kind of trance and meditation. The brain escapes. Unconsciously he no longer gives instructions by hand. She is the one who takes over and makes the textile piece. It is when the gesture is no longer controlled, that all the subtleties of the realization by hand are revealed, all these small unpremeditated defects which constitute the sensitivity and the fragility of the piece. These are certainly errors, but magnificent errors.

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"After completing a degree in textile design at La Cambre, Iris Frère turned to textile arts and tapestry at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels where she finished her master's degree.
His practice is emancipated from an apprenticeship linked to tapestry and is anchored in the work of all textile mediums. Weaving, lace, knitting, patterns. Everything that will question the thread and the interlacing and that will lead the thread to tell a story.

The main narrative arc of his practice evolves around the shelter and allows him to share a certain intimacy. In addition, the time and technique required to manufacture its textile pieces bring the process to the forefront of projects. A long and laborious gesture, for example that of making lace, allows Iris Frère to put all of her body and mind into her pieces. Through this ritual, she gives them the quality of intimate objects and, subsequently, of becoming installations where the spectator can enter and share his intimacy.

The idea of ​​discovering and sharing intimacies leads Iris to offer the viewer pieces that speak to the temporality of the studio. That of manufacturing. They bear witness to the artist's work and develop the admiring relationship that the spectator can have with the piece he is observing.

By diverting pure technique, Iris Frère opens up the field of possibilities in the development of her artistic practice. Far from being confined to the production of handicrafts, she develops large-scale sculptural projects, which also question the artist's freedom in the face of traditional techniques."
Text by Celeste Alicot