Seed of Kindred Souls
2022, Recycled fabric, yarn, rope, thread, graphite, acrylic, ink, canvas, recycled foam and fiberfill
17'x 22' x 10'
This work was a collaboration with the Houston community. Funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.
Emma Balder is a visual artist working at the confluence of fiber art and painting.
She is currently based in Denver, Colorado.
“Balder is principly interested in creating artwork as a manifestation fo her own world on her own terms: a place to escape to and live in; both a new world and a new home…she creates a beautiful synergy by deconstructing and reconstructing both the physical materials she utilizes to create the works, and the language she uses to describe them…Both Balder’s Pinglet and Fiber Painting abstractions appear to be dancing or blowing in the wind. They are free, and Balder found both freedom and home in the creation of her own combinations and interpretations of media that don’t stick to traditional definitions of painting or sculpture.”
- ALEXANDRA GOLDMAN, Artifactoid
“[Balder] doesn’t just want to explore fabric according to her own personal and creative impulses…This inclination to bring in others’ voices through their personal effects – and to collage together a sense of shared community, creativity, and time – echoes in Balder’s latest project, “Beyond the Surface”…As in her previous works, the artist has to let go of any attachment to her original painted design... In the collaborative work for “Beyond the Surface,” participants had to do an even more profound act of letting go: no matter how much their object symbolized or how long it had been a part of their lives, they had to relinquish their attachment to its physical form…The resulting creations bring to mind the concept of a patchwork, where a small scrap of fabric can mend or strengthen the torn or weakened point of a larger whole… With its mixture of materials and moments, the artist’s project reminds us that art can help us see just how much our lives are part of a collective tapestry.”
- LAUREN MOYA FORD, writer, Hyperallergic, Glasstire, Southwest Contemporary, BOMB Magazine
“Emma is a conduit, revealing the unique personalities of her pieces as their parts are dissected, recombined, painted, stuffed, hand-sewn, and situated on a wall. As the forms grow in every dimension, and fibers spread across the surfaces of paper and canvas, the expectations of painting are recalibrated and the paintings themselves can be understood as embodiments of change… While technically static, the pieces give a lasting impression of motion and serve as a compelling reminder of what it means to be alive…”