Anne von Freyburg
- 18 hours ago
- 4 min read
Anne von Freyburg is a Dutch artist based in London who works with textiles, mixed media and installation. She trained in fashion design in Arnhem and later did her MFA at Goldsmiths. At some point making wearable art became too limited and the work went on the wall. She translates Rococo paintings into synthetic fabrics, sequins, PVC and hand-embroidery, hand-stitching every piece onto the canvas. The puffy, quilted surfaces started as a reference to cosmetic fillers but now speak more about letting go of control and accepting a changing body. Her recent installation In Flight Mode (After Fragonard, The Swing) is currently on view at Saatchi Gallery.
Q: You have a BA in Fashion Design from ArtEZ Arnhem and an MFA from Goldsmiths. How did fashion become art for you?
A: Fashion has always been art for me. I never made a distinction between the two. Of course, it’s applied art, but fashion, how I studied it, has as much meaning and content as fine art has. At a certain point, making wearable art became too limited for what I wanted to say through my work. That’s where I started looking at it from a different angle and thought about how I could make work that could go on the wall or be placed in a room.
Q: Your work translates Rococo painting into synthetic fabrics, sequins, PVC. What's the connection between those two worlds?
A: The Rococo era was all about exuberance, opulence, overwhelm, frivolity, and artifice. Aristocratic women were portraying themselves, showing off their wealth and beauty. I see the Rococo period as a celebration of the senses, the sensual, and overwhelming visual pleasures, but also as a hedonistic and overly indulgent one. The portraits of those aristocratic ladies and garden party scenes remind me of selfie culture and the curated rich lives one sees on social media. The seductive fabrics are a reference to this opulence, a culture obsessed with image, the body, and appearance. By using an overload of various fabrics, I want to speak about overconsumption and fast fashion.
Q: The puffy, quilted quality of the work is deliberate. You've linked it to cosmetic fillers and body manipulation. How do people respond to that when they first encounter it?
A: The puffiness of the work also refers to bumpy, ‘imperfect’ body parts. The bigger the work gets, the more grotesque and sculptural the work becomes. Some of the parts are even three-dimensional. I think at the moment the work is speaking more about letting go of control and of unrealistic beauty standards, and about the acceptance of a changing body. I’m not sure people directly will read all of that into my work, but I do hear they feel the boldness and unapologeticness the work gives off.
Q: You make everything by hand. In a world of digital shortcuts, what keeps you with the needle?
A: The first sketch is digitally manipulated in Photoshop, but yes, the rest is all painting, cutting, and then hand-sewing. There is no shortcut to get to this result other than to hand-stitch every single fabric onto the canvas, unfortunately. Materials are part of my artistic language. I’m naturally drawn to them, but the way I brought them together was a conceptual choice. I wanted to blur the boundaries between making and thinking, painting and tapestry, and fine art and craft.
Q: Your work was part of the Tapestry Triennial at the Central Textile Museum in Łódź. What was it like seeing your work in that context, alongside the history of textile art?
A: It was great seeing my work in the context of my fellow contemporaries working with textiles as a medium. It’s wonderful to see that there is a renewed interest in textiles. My work was in the section re-engaging invisible narratives and centering community. The exhibition showed again how the message of a work can be in the medium and how diverse textile as an art form is.
Q: You had a solo at Saatchi and a solo booth at Zona Maco last year. What are you working toward right now?
A: The last six months, I have been working on a large textile wall installation, “In Flight Mode (After Fragonard, The Swing),” for the group show “Textile Art Redefined,” curated by Helen Adams at Saatchi Gallery. The exhibition just opened on the 10th of April. Currently, I’m finishing a large deconstructed floral still life after the Dutch Old Master painter Jan van Huysum for CAN Art Ibiza, presented by Rademakers Gallery. As soon as that’s finished, I will be working towards my second solo show for HOFA Gallery London, which will be opening in summer 2027.
