Anne von Freyburg’s Rococo Reimagined at HOFA

HOFA has announced the inaugural UK solo exhibition by Dutch artist Anne von Freyburg, at its flagship gallery in London’s Mayfair from 2nd – 14th February 2024. Titled ‘Papillotage’, the exhibition will showcase 14 new and previously unseen textile remakes of works by Rococo masters Boucher, Fragonard and Le Brun. A central focus will be on a wall installation inspired by Fragonard’s masterpiece The Swing.

Anne von Freyburg, Filthy Cute (After Fragonard, young women), 2022, 110 x 150 cm. Acrylic ink, synthetic-fabrics, tapestry-fabric, sequin fabrics, hand-embroidery, polyester wadding and hand-dyed tassel fringes on canvas

The show will feature von Freyburg’s reinterpretations of paintings by François Boucher, portraits by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun featuring smiling women, and various other small to mid-sized textile works. The centrepiece of the show is a reinterpretation of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s iconic ‘The Swing’ from 1767. In her work titled ‘Oops! I made you lose your head’ she transforms the dynamic, placing the mistress as the active subject, dominating the painting with her presence and pleasure.

Stunning

Von Freyburg is renowned for her intricately stunning textile paintings that both recreate and subvert the works of old masters while elevating artistic practices and materials traditionally associated with femininity. In 2021, she received the Robert Walters UK New Artist of the Year Award, and she was a nominee for the Ingram Prize. In 2022, her work was featured in the esteemed Tapestry Triennial at the Central Textile Museum in Lodz, Poland.

Her new works embrace the quintessential Rococo technique of Papillotage, characterised by multiple points of interest created through light and colour. Traditionally criticised for its frivolity and association with the feminine, von Freyburg reclaims and celebrates this technique in all its feminine glory. The result is a veritable tour de force of colour, texture, and creative audacity. This new shows a significant expansion in von Freyburg’s artistic practice, building on past accomplishments.

Ideas of female representation, agency and resistance through pleasure and desire are central to the exhibition, as von Freyburg explains, “I have always been interested in freeing myself from limiting thoughts on femininity and the feminine aesthetic by making art that is unrestrained and unapologetic in its use of colour, shape and material,”

She adds, “In this new body of work that is both visceral and seductive, I allow myself the freedom to use any shape, form, colour or material that I desire and take pleasure from, hoping to ignite a spark or even fire in others.”

Daring

HOFA Gallery Co-Founder and curator Simonida Pavicevic says about the forthcoming show, “Anne von Freyburg’s daring to recreate and remix the works of old masters using unconventional materials, sculptural flair, and a generous array of visual delights defines her work as refreshingly delightful and remarkable. The ‘Papillotage’ exhibition guides viewers through a mesmerising journey of pleasures, embodied by candy-like colours and seductive textures, all inevitably pointing to the liberated female.”