Gabriella Presnal
- Country
- Finland
Gabriella Presnal (b.2001, they/them) is a Finnish-American artist based in Finland. Born in Germany and having grown up living in countries like Sweden, Canada, and multiple states in the U.S., they have been living in Finland for the past 7 years and have recently lived the last year in Copenhagen, Denmark for studies. They are a multidisciplinary artist working with sculpture, painting, moving image (& 360 video), hand-drawn animation, biomaterials, as well as applied fine arts.
At the root of their works, there is an ongoing conversation with themself on how they move through memory, culture, and understanding spatiality. Their works have many times worked with communities, such as queer international (multicultural, immigrants, language minorities) youth. They have also produced multiple community-based projects surrounding sustainability & nonhuman actors, precarity in the arts field, and imagining utopias.
Many of my works from painting, sculpture, and other mixed media projects integrate weaving. Weaving is used as a method of reclaiming weaving from being a “striated space”, as described by Deleuze and Guattari on nomad art in A Thousand Platues (1980). Using textiles as metaphors for spatiality, Deleuze and Guattari have imagined the typical woven square as the textile method of highest control and measurement. As a self-taught cultural practice, I use weaving as a method of reclaiming what is considered a medium – and space – of high control. I often use basket weaving which allows the “space” to be aerated. The method was produced as a method of representing othered space and times in connection to cultural and queer identity.
Artworks
The process takes broken cabling and uses simple basket weaving to transform a two-dimensional landscape into something three-dimensional. Weaving was used as a starting point from a cultural aspect as I am half Finnish but did not grow up here or grow up being close with grandparents (who could pass on these techniques). The materials address a feeling of artificiality or alienation from one's culture as one attempts to self-learn one's culture through digital means (YouTube videos on weaving).
The performer cares for a wire garment created from broken, up cycled cables. It also reflects an element of feeling artificiality of one’s cultural identity. The work represents care during mundane moments in the home and re-connecting to cultural heritage. The act of washing creates a moment of drifting where one’s mind begins to wander and reflect on past memories while caring for the garment. Drifting allows one to create comfort around feeling artificial.
This is a bio-material based basket-woven sample. The piece uses eggshells, spirulina, gylcerin, and sodium alginate to create eggshell biocomposite threads.
The sun is a form of self reflection as well as a symbol of life force (carbon cycle). Thinking about energy that ebbs into and ebbs away from us, simultaneously thinking about love that we receive as well as give. There is more solace in this one but somehow even more peaceful as they return to the sun.