Barbara Philipp
The Knock Down
Series of drawings - ongoing
Stay home. Once again. Anxious. Not knowing what to expect. Enfolded by the loss of my father. A chance to grief, an opportunity? A burden. But still life, life in danger. The old generation is put into the box of risk group. Our children are more or less safe. Really? Shimmery images on the windows of our screens. Face- Time. Zooming, Apping, break. Continuous interruption and the virtual reality becomes part of every day life. The real life seems to be the script of a movie. How are family members, how are our friends? Borders are closed. House doors remain locked. Restrictions. No travelling. Staying home.
My inner life becomes home. I live in my drawings. My drawings are the observation of what is going on at the moment, I capture the news and fix them in my sketches. Because they influence my reality, my living world. Cuddling our children. Loosing temper. Feeling desperate. Feeling ashamed to be safe. But it is an illusion. I am facing it, again. Isolation.
A parallel to the lock-down I experienced when I became a mother. Mother and artist are system relevant poles in society. But politics seems to forget about them. Without literature, music, theatre and visual arts we can hardly hang over in this period. But still, rulers do not see the relevance. Everything will be done, also without money. Sense of responsibility. The impact of care is seen but not compensated. Still not. It should be time for a strong financial reset. Society has to rethink which values the economical world transmits. Are we, artists and mothers, still alone when we are asked to combine all tasks?
These drawings are an ongoing project, after every wave I think it is finally over, but it feels for me now like swimming in an ocean.
The drawings are a visual journal intimately portraying the feelings of confinement, loss of physical connection and grief felt after the death of her father.
Read more about the beginning of the drawing series at the Austrian newspaper Tastachen:
https://tatsachen.at/2020/06/13/barbara-philipp-en/
Publication of the drawings in:
https://demeterpress.org/books/mothers-mothering-and-covid-19-dispatches-from-the-pandemic/
All the drawings of the Knock Down Series have the same size, 29x21cm , mixed media on paper
Barbara Philipp works in the Netherlands. She was born in Austria, studied art in Paris, Vienna and in Frankfurt. Workshops entitled Queer Feminism at the Free Radio Vienna and more recently, the participation in the Mothernists I and II conferences in Rotterdam and Copenhagen, inspired and empowered her. Drawings, paintings and performances are her artistic media. She loves to collaborate and discover other artist perspectives. The Tomorrow Girls Troop (TGT), an activist and feminist group in Japan, invited her for a lecture performance called Mother Artist in Action at 333 Arts Chiyoda Galerie in Tokyo. Barbara Philipp also contributed with a performance at the Mothers in Arts project of Csilla Klenyánszki and wrote in collaboration with the women activist, feminist and artist Shira Richter for the wall newspaper Ausreisser.
For more information: www.barbaraphilipp.com
Instagram: @philiba20