Following the success of her sell-out solo exhibition "I Think My Pig Is Whistling" and her acclaimed presentation at the Aotearoa Art Fair, Foenander Galleries artist Jess Swney has relocated to Berlin to undertake a three-month residency with the SomoS International Artist Residency program.
During the residency, Swney is expanding her textile practice through the development of a large-scale hand-tufted work while refining techniques that build on her self-taught approach to textiles. The residency follows her recent time in Sefrou, Morocco, where she worked alongside local artisans, learning traditional weaving methods on hand-operated looms and deepening her understanding of textile traditions.
Swney's hand-tufted works explore themes of memory, care, inherited knowledge, and the gendered histories of textile labour. Working from photographic fragments, she creates tactile rug "paintings" that sit between abstraction and realism, using wool, colour, and texture to transform personal observation into richly layered works. Her Berlin residency marks an exciting new chapter in the evolution of her practice as she brings together traditional textile knowledge with contemporary art-making.
