Cyrilla Mozenter

Statement

CYRILLA MOZENTER

I make felt wall pieces, freestanding constructions and works-on-paper in which there is play with language and tension between two and three dimensions. I use letters, words and pictogram-like shapes, symbolic language not to be read, but to evoke sight and sound

Industrial wool felt shapes are cut out and hand-stitched back into position. Cutting and separating enables re-forming. The stitching-back-in causes felt to buckle and warp, bringing in an element of chance and creating unexpected dimensionalities. The stitching is labor intensive and requires maintaining attentiveness for long periods. The stitching can seem evidence of a painful occurrence. The process has a devotional quality.

With the handmade paper pieces, I draw with pencil, paint with gouache, cut and glue. As a child I drew with scissors, imagining hidden creatures released from their construction paper ground. As an adult and in similar fashion to the felt work, I bring these 'creatures' back into the 'corral' where they are tethered into position with small strips of paper. These small strips serve to integrate, entomb and strengthen the free-standing pieces.

As symbolic language my work is exploring and describing—correspondences and continuities. Inner/outer:  winter   warm   light   spring   dark   cold— both   several   all-at-once.

Early on in these investigations, the phrase "warm snow" from Gertrude Stein's libretto Four Saints in Three Acts became an organizing principle. Snow and felt are insulators and make quiet. Cold temperatures preserve freshness. In cold regions life is reduced to essentials. An occasional thaw, however, enables flow. In the Grail legends, Parsifal sets out on his quest in the month of May—and it's snowing: warm snow.

While I have been working in this way with these materials for quite some time, color is newly found.