Carmen Schabracq works in various media, she makes paintings, sculptural installations, masks and performances in which the theatricality of life plays an important role. She collects stories from different myths, traditions, her own experiences and uses them to recreate collage like visual narratives. The mask is a recurrent object and theme within her work, which she uses to explore the complexity of human identity. A mask is a tool within a ritual or performance, to become 'the other' and she plays with this in different ways. Her work is also a form of escapism with the characters she places in spaces of color. A way to escape from this world and imagine yourself in another, full of color, playfulness and humor, in order to deal with the reality of life and death.
Carmen was born in Amsterdam (1988), where she now lives and works. In 2012 she obtained her BA in fine arts from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, after a year of painting studies at the Academia di Belle Arti in Rome. In 2015 she obtained her MA in theater costume design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, with a research and body of work she called 'naked masks'. In 2017-2018 she received the ‘new makers subsidy’ from the Performing Arts Fund NL, with which she made two in situ performances in Zeeland.
The last two months of 2019, Carmen spent in an artist in residency in Mexico where she researched the local masks and the cultus around death. In the autumn of 2020 she worked for a month in the AiR guest studio of the Vincent van Gogh house in Zundert, where she researched by painting from a live model whether the portrait could be a form of mask that shows the inner state.
Every month women have to deal with a bad mood and pain because of their menstruation. Perhaps all this suffering is because of the loss of an egg. This is the first painting the artist painted with egg tempera.
This work is a self-portrait, inspired on the 'Madonna Lactans, the late Middle Ages paintings of Madonna's feeding Jesus. It is also a self-portrait where Carmen shows how she's feeding herself. As long as she doesn't have children, she is feeding herself with making art, with inspiration from within, with the milk of dreams -after Eleonora Carrington's story, and the title of this year's main exhibition of the Venice Biennale with almost only female artists-.
Masks of the goat are used in several masquerade rituals in different places in Europe. The horned one sometimes represents a connection to the devil. In some rituals the goat stands for fertility and in others it is a scary character. It is an important animal in many cults: in the bible, and in ancient Syria. In Greek mythology the god Pan is half human half goat, in Romania there is a traditional goat dance and in Bulgaria the goat accompanies the Kukeri in their masquerade rituals. For this mask the artist used three different techniques: papier-mâché, basketry of willow branches an crochet of wool.
In the summer of 2021 Carmen did an art residency in a small village in the middle of Bulgaria, Vishovgrad. She wanted to do research on the rich masquerade tradition of Bulgaria, where the main masked figures are called 'Kukeri, who chase the evil spirits of the winter away and welcome spring and fertility, accompanied by a goat and other characters to scare the devil. Since she was there in the middle of the summer and the Kukeri only appear in winter time, she decided to paint them in the bar, where the locals were drinking and spending their summer, which was also her entrance to the local community.
The Birth was inspired by the story of Lilith, Adam's first wife, who was banished from paradise only because she was equal to Adam. Since then, she has been collecting the "wasted" sperm from men and is always giving birth. They say she gives birth to little devils, but maybe they look like little donkeys. The donkey is the most melancholic animal Carmen knows, and her favorite animal at the moment. This is the first tufted tapestry she made, she sees it as a painting made of yarn and wool.
Carmen Schabracq, 1988, Amsterdam, NL
Education
2014-2015 MA of Arts, Theatre costume design, Royal Academy of Art, Antwerpen B
2008-2012 BA Fine Arts, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam NL
2011 Erasmus exchange Fine Arts, Sint Lucas Academie, Gent B
2007-2008 Painting, Academia di Belle Arti, Roma IT
Grants
2020 Amarte fund - project & development funding, working period Hembrug Terrein
2017/2018 New Makers development subsidy, FPK - Performing Arts Fund, NL
2017 Voor de Kunst crowdfunding for the publication of my book Is your body the pedestal of your head? With contributions of Amsterdam Fund of Art (AFK) & The Mondriaan Fund
Residencies
2021 Artist in residency, Kunsthuis SYB, Beetserzwaag, NL (upcoming)
2021 Artist in residency, Zaratan, Lisbon, P (upcoming)
2020 Artist in residency, Vincent van Gogh Huis, Zundert, NL
2020 Artist in residency, Opium Atelier, Radio 4, Hilversum, NL
2019 Artist in residency, Casa Lü, Mexico City, MX
Works in collections
Memento Mori (2020) in the collection of the Vincent van Gogh Huis NL 2020
Muse IV (2019) in the collection of the Akzo Nobel Art foundation NL 2020
El Panteón (2019) in the private collection of Lea Marcaccini MX
Exhibitions selection period 2016-2022
2021-2022 Vanwege Vincent, group exhibition, Stedelijk Museum Breda
2021 Extravaganza, group show: Jan Hoek, Eleonora Stol & me, Galerie Fleur & Wouter, Amsterdam NL
2020 Vincent van Gogh Huis AiR, solo show, Van Gogh Galerie, Zundert NL
2020 20 jaar Zeeland Nazomer Festival, video & installation, group show, Middelburg NL
2020 Sighing Masks, etalage installation & show, CBK Amsterdam NL
2019 La Realidad del Perro, group show, Casa Lü, Mexico City MX
2019 Ambassade van de Noordzee, lecture & group show, Stroom Den Haag & strand Scheveningen NL
2019 Dicke Mädchen, group show with Rosa Schützendorf & Jack Davey, Antwerp Art Weekend B
2018 Kustpijn Paardenkracht, installation, Kloostergang Abdij plein, Middelburg NL 2017 Maskerade, Masks in art and the art of the mask, Stichting Polderlicht, Amsterdam NL
2017 Imagine Film Festival, installation, Eye Film museum, Amsterdam NL
2016 De Bonte Duif en het Zwarte Padje, group show, Bellamy Kabinet, Amsterdam NL
2016 XII, group show, 12 hour exhibition XII, W139, Amsterdam NL
2016 Conceal to Reveal, solo show, Weekender, Punt WG, Amsterdam NL
2016 Occultare per Mostrare, solo show, Galleria Grefti, Umbertide IT
Performance selection period 2016-2020
2020 Xolotl guide to the underworld, performance in collab. with Project Wildeman, Amsterdam NL
2020 Listening to the political voice of the sea, Ambassade v/d Noordzee, Frascati, Amsterdam NL
2019 Minotaurus, interactive installation in colab. with BREI, Festival Boulevard, Den Bosch NL 2018 Kustpijn Paardenkracht, performance, Zeeland Nazomer Festival, Zoutelande NL
2018 De Poesie Bar, Eddie and the Eagles, Bimhuis, Amsterdam NL
2017 Sint Nicolaas (hij komt, hij komt), performance show, Sint Nicolaas kerk, Brouwershaven NL
2017 So you think you can DaDa?, group performance show, Leidse Schouwburg, Leiden NL
2017 Heroines Circus, performance night curated by me and Renske van Enckevort, Sociëteit Sexyland, Amsterdam NL
2016 Is your body the pedestal of your head?, 12-hour performance, XII, W139, Amsterdam NL
Publications
2020 We are the collection, AKZO NOBEL Art Foundation 25 years of collection magazine
2020 Jaarpublicatie 2019, Luisteren naar de Noordzee, Ambassade van de Noordzee 2020 Beroepsvereniging Beeldende Kunstenaars Magazine, #1
2018 Is your body the pedestal of your head?, Book about my masks, in collaboration with Paul Koeleman, with introduction by Alex Mallems and an interview by Renee Padt. 2018 Faceless Re-inventing Privacy Trough Subversive Media Strategies Ed. By Doringer, Bogomir / Felderer, Brigitte.
2018 From a creative nest: Carmen Schabracq, online article, ID magazine 22/02
2017 Samen eten we Sint Nicolaas op, newspaper article, 1/12 Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant
Galerie Fleur & Wouter
Van Ostadestraat 43A, Amsterdam
+31 6 577 482 99
info@galeriefleurenwouter.com
Photography by Jan Stads, Jonathan de Waart, Cleo Goossens