We Want Hugs
door Elseline ten Hope
Embroidery on toilet paper
Just as the colours in all tones jump out on her grid paintings that she exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam for the Volkskrant BK prize, new atypical work by Rosa Johanna appears for the virtual exhibition Corona in the city of the Amsterdam Museum. Belonging to painting in the canon of Western art history to high art, she now enters the arts and crafts world with the embroidery of her work ‘Tissues’ on a prosaic toilet roll.
It contains the toilet roll itself, but there are also separate ‘flaps’ that people can buy separately, they go up in price per flap. So the first one costs 1 euro, number 20, costs 20 euro etc. .
Because of the embroidered grid contours, each loose toilet sheet has elements of the structure of its painted grid compositions. And a framed sheet is just a small formal painting on canvas. In this way, with humour and putting things into perspective, she manages to close the dividing line between the history of constructed beauty and applied arts. This everyday utensil was decorated by her during the Corona quarantine period when everyone was more obliged to be at home from one moment to the next.
The final action lies with the buyer who, by tearing off a new sheet of toilet paper, completes the phase to a work of art.
Text by Macha Roesink
by Rosa Johanna
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