Series Promises, 2025–ongoing

In my series Promises, I translate affirmations into a visual language to give form and structure to the future. 

The resulting visual compositions reflect emotional states and explore one’s own state of mind amidst the tensions of a challenging present and the fears associated with it.

The recurring gesture of crumpling and subsequent smoothing out the paper functions as a performative act in which an inner conflict materialises: the simultaneous need for distancing and preservation. This ambivalence is not resolved, but rather made productive by being translated into a visual order.

Formally, this is evident in the individual works through the duplication of a central pictorial element: a crumpled fragment highlights the essential part of the image, breaks it up and simultaneously reinforces its meaning. The trace of the gesture remains visible – as a sign of vulnerability, but also of change and new order.

Brigitte Konyen 2025