The dark frown of a faraway storm, the setting sun easing into an embroidered light, resisting its own fixed mechanism of the frame. Maennel’s seascapes and landscapes let the viewer settle into the feeling of distance. Yet, the embroidered trompe l’oeil maintains the illusion that we can actually sense the atmosphere in her scenes, more intimately than a completely two-dimensional image. 

Certain threads of yarn, which delicately illuminate the gloaming hour, insist on the sensation of the air’s changeability; a warm thickness as the light subdues, the clearer air as the dark closes in. This texture also evokes the complex movements of the sunset itself; the scattering of wavelengths that eventually reaches our eyes, which have varying sensitivities, and the molecules of air that enter our lungs. The artist notes, in fact, being inspired by Erich Fried’s poem “Sea”, which embraces the act of arriving at a quiet seascape and breathing it in.

Like memories, Maennel’s embroidered paintings heighten the texture of a familiar, tangible experience. They are ready to dissolve or move on from their frames, enacting in a sense what Paul Klee has described as a fixated movement.

Yet, just as present in Maennel’s sea portraits is the tension of subjectivity. If these views evoke calm, deep breaths for some, they also might ask, as Christina Sharpe does in In the Wake, who gets to breathe in the freedom of clean air, and from what shore? For some, the sea’s “refrain” or loss “is upon us”, as the poet ‘Gbenga Adeoba writes in “Seafarers”. Migrants may discover the sea’s “unfulfilled promises”. Residents of low-lying islands may remark, in the same shared sunset, the sea’s encroachment on the shore due to climate change. 

Then, in her work “Jungle,” Maennel breaks the constraints of the canvas: green yarn overgrows its space on the wall and spills onto the floor. Inspired by a residency in Tulum, Mexico, Maennel recreated the persistent vitality of the jungle; its evolutionary impetus to recreate itself, and its potential survival beyond those who destroy it. 

Perhaps what unites Maennel’s work is the sense of surprise or revelation in realizing the yarn’s effect. It heightens the instinct to want to touch it, which is a way of bringing the sensations of seascapes, landscapes, and atmospheres to an intimate, interior space. 

- The Editors

Notes to my work

My works are painted in black ink on canvas. They are more figurative paintings, often showing landscape scenes. To bring color into the scenery, but also to create a second, more abstract level, I embroider over the painting with colored thread. I embroider without exception in horizontal lines, which have about 5 mm distance from each other. This rasterizes the image and gives it something blurred. At the same time, the decent colors of the yarns colorize the painting.

Standing directly in front of the picture, it seems as if the layers dissolve. The eye merges painting and embroidery, it is hard to believe that the color is not part of the painting, but was embroidered on afterwards. I have observed at pretty much every exhibition that visitors can't stop themselves and secretly touch the painting, pushing the threads gently apart to discover the secret of how it was made. I also observe that there is a very great desire on the part of the viewers to touch the soft wool.

Presumably, the material is associated more with a certain cuddle factor, since wool is normally used in clothing or everyday objects such as blankets, pillows, etc...

Of course, it is not allowed and it excites me, to play with these aspects.