Maria Zahle recently staged a large-scale solo exhibition at Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm, bringing together work from the entire span of her artistic career. Series of works were presented together in groups, alongside the work of colleagues and friends such as Anthea Hamilton and Phyllida Barlow.

Here in the intimate space of Arcade, Zahle’s works are hung in pairs, collages next to woven works, highlighting the characteristic touch of the artist: a sustained, articulate and sensitive engagement with material and space. The wall has been painted with natural dye, creating a sensuous space for the works to be displayed.

Zahle’s use of weaving, paper dyeing, and collage construction all display the act of making; tape and loose threads are not tucked away or cut off, but left to shine and dangle. In this way the artist invites the viewer into her process of thought, where a final work is both a statement and a proposition.

“Maria Zahle’s works are made with a small range of materials: woven linen, wool, natural dyes, metal bars and wire, stones, crayon, hand-coloured paper, and archival tape. Many of the materials, importantly, have been sourced or created by the artist before she puts them to use in one of her objects. Zahle taught herself how to weave, learning a few patterns and traditional techniques, and produces her own fabrics. Perhaps more unusually, she also learned how to make dyes, sometimes growing the plants whose roots or leaves she boils and ferments. Colour, which we usually appreciate as a visual component of an art work, has always been seen by Zahle as a material. One could even say that the sculptural process begins, for her, in planting and picking, cooking and cooling of dyes.”

“There are clear connections between her work and that of her predecessors. The paper works recall many works of Ellsworth Kelly’s. She has long been drawn to the finely tuned humility of Richard Tuttle’s sculptures, from the Wire Pieces of the early 1970s to the more colourful wall assemblages of the early 1980s made with card, twigs, plywood, felt, and paint.”

“Zahle’s interest in the culture of the 1970s signals a deeply felt scepticism about contemporary obsessions with technology and social media, but there is nothing nostalgic or puritanical about her art. She is no Luddite. As soon as we look at her work, it’s clear that when she needs to, she will use mass-produced metal rods ordered to her studio from the internet, or ripstop nylon, or indeed archival tape, alongside all the home-dyed, hand-woven cloths.“

Excerpts from Mark Godfrey’s text Cast of Characters published in the catalogue for Maria Zahle: No Stranger or Lover to Me at Rønnebæksholm, Denmark (2022).

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The exhibition includes also selected writings by Melissa Gordon and vinyl records courtesy of Polychrome

Melissa Gordon is an American and British painter, writer and editor based in Brussels. Her painting practice has, since 2010, been alongside and overlapping with a practice of writing and publishing other artists and writers. Gathered here, for the first time together, is a library of published and unpublished material written by, curated, collected and commissioned by Melissa Gordon from 2011 until present.

Polychrome is a residency space in Amager, Copenhagen, for music, text, dance, sound art, and performance, with a focus on Danish and Nordic artists.

Polychrome also contains a shop with books, records, tapes, and other materials that have a focus on independent labels and publishers in Denmark and the Nordic countries.
Polychrome is co-founded by Maria Zahle & Jason Dungan

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Maria Zahle (1979, Copenhagen, DK) received a BA(Hons) in Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK (2005) and received her Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Academy Schools, London, UK (2009).

Recent solo exhibitions include No Stranger or Lover to Me, Rønnebæksholm, Næstved, DK, (2022); Nat Skærer Blå (with Christine Clemmesen), Hillerød Bibliotek, DK (2021); Sunny Legs (with Tillmann Terbuyken), Friese Künstlerhaus, Hamburg, DE (2021), HHH HHV HHH (feat. DEAP), Aga Works, Copenhagen, DK (2020). She is a founding member of the music group Squares & Triangles and co-director (with Jason Dungan) of Polychrome, a space for art, music and poetry in Copenhagen, DK. Her second book of poetry The Toe The Horse The Sister was published by AkermanDaly with a performance and launch at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, DK (both 2021).