Meet Wendy Plovmand, Founder and Creative Director at ARTiiG
The first wearable art collection by ARTiiG was created by Danish contemporary artist Wendy Plovmand, an artistic project that combine the two things that she loves the most: art and fashion.

We talked to Wendy about her passion for art, her inspiration and her ambition as an artist, so that you can get to know both Wendy and ARTiiG a bit better, and have a look at what goes on behind the scenes in her life as an artist.

What is your favourite thing about art and why and what value does art have?For me, art has always had the importance and value as a place to seek answers. A somehow almost sacred area of life – with no rules, no right and wrong and the opportunity to seek, question and investigate urgent subjects of matters. You can’t plan the process of creating an artwork, at one point the artwork takes over and makes its own decisions. In this sense, it’s the collaborative deep and almost meditative correspondence with a piece that is very precious for me as an artist. I also appreciate the idea that there are endless possibilities creating art – you never get to the end of creating.

Art possess the potential to communicate the sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves – something meaningful. Art is a huge cultural heritage and without it we would have no idea of human history, where we come from and what issues mankind have been dealing with since the beginning of all things. Art questions what it is like to be a human throughout history and today. 

 

What is your aspiration and mission as an artist?
I am becoming more and more interested in both the potential of the artistic process and the relevance of art in contemporary life. At the moment I am working on two projects/ideas that manifest my mission with art in a larger scale. 

The first project is the first draft of the project “Art & Education” which is rethinking the way we introduce working with art, and learning about the artistic process, in the public school. The project will include philosophers, priests, artist and writers and invite the students to participate in artistic processes in order to introduce some of the great things working with art can teach us.

The second project, is closely related to the ambition behind ARTiiG, namely bringing more art into public space. I recently met with the mayor of Frederiksberg city in order to discuss how we could move forward, to make sure all new buildings in the municipality reserve a certain percentage of the budget to integrated contemporary Art.

Why is it important to you to work with art in public spaces?
In recent years, I have been working more and more with integrating art in public spaces. I have realised that what is at the core of this is to allow people a more personal and natural way to interact with art on their daily route through the city. It makes so much sense and adds a lot of meaning to the value of an art piece. Furthermore, site-specific art seem to increase the wellbeing of people using the spaces or living in the area. Recent studies even show that art tends to gather people, make them join forces and even thrive better. It increases our quality of life!

What made you decide to start ARTiiG?
After working more and more with integrating art in public spaces, I realised how valuable this meeting between art and people in real life is. I wanted to make a statement on how relevant art is. I wanted more people to engage with art and experience the value of art. After many years of working within the fashion industry, as well an interest in developing a new kind of hybrid of high fashion and art – ARTiiG, wearable art, was born.

What are your sources of inspiration?
Inspiration comes from everywhere. People, exhibitions, travelling, visuals, books, poems, plants, philosophy, solitude – I would say all aspects of life poured into a big bowl – well mixed and then some stuff seems to pop out and insist on being taken into consideration.

What art pieces are your favourites? 
Currently I am very happy with my latest commission “To make your mark in the world” at Skolen På Duevej. Inspired by the students marks on the original School building from 1906, the idea was to connect the building by materials and give the students a voice to put their marks in the world anno 2018. More than 200 students age 6-15 were asked the same 20 questions about their life as kids, students and about their school life in general. All words were then curated and puzzled together in one large scale image of words that were then hand painted on a total of 997 ceramic tiles.

It has also just been announced that I am one of the artists to create a new large scale ceramic installation at the new Health Care Center in northern Zealand. I am very happy and excited about this new commission.

 

Interview by @nordahl.creative