The fragility of our existence is an essential fact for Charlotte Schrameijer. This is what she experiences in the world around her. The consequences of our human actions on nature and coexistence on earth are immense. Inequality between people is increasing; countless lives are insecure or on the run. The chaos we create has never been so great. Photos of places that disturb her: war zones, controversial border areas, refugee camps, polluted areas. She collects images of these situations to grasp this chaos, the stream of pictures that prove it, and her confusion about it. It is her way of mapping the entropy of the world around her.  This results in collages in which Schrameijer searches for a balance between seduction/decoration and substantive meaning. Between something that looks ‘beautiful’ from a distance, but – when you take a closer look, it turns out to be a raw reality. She cuts the collages into ‘paper tapestries’ or ‘lace works,’ in which both layering & concentration of the image and disintegration exist. In doing so, she pushes the limits of the paper; how fragile can this be without it falling apart? What happens when it falls apart?  In this way, she tries to bring together form and content.

Charlotte Schrameijer (*1963) lives and works in Amsterdam,, The Netherlands

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