Norwegian Artist Damselfrau Creates Otherworldly Masks From Recycled Materials
Damselfrau is the myserious London-based artist creating masks that look like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Originally from Norway, the artist also known as Magnhild Kennedy is interested in the power and rituals behind disguise – and how they can be used to play with our identity and sense of place.
“I work with masks as autonomous works of art as well as action-objects. For me the mask is a place where different elements come together as situation. The work is about this place-situation, more so than the mask as a theme or category of form. The mask is a place.”
Recycling materials is a key part of the artist’s work. Using everything from rubbish found on the street to two hundred year old Japanese geisha hair pieces, Damselfrau’s creations convey a sinister kind of beauty.
“I am led by the phantasms appearing in the process of the making and the materials themselves. These guide my decisions and inform the objects I make” she says. “For me they can be art and fashion and utilitarian all at once.”
