TRANSLATIONS

ORNAMENTAL TEMPLATES

I use the volumes Ornamentale Vorlagenblätter des 15. bis 19. Jahrhunderts, published by Rudolf Berliner and Gerhart Egger, as a starting point for these drawings. During the 15th century, books with ornamental blueprints began to play an important role in architecture and artisanry. Like the artists of that time, I base my work on a model and reproduce it. The copper engravings depicted in the volume are themselves not entirely new creations of the 16th century, but rather expand upon antique wall decorations.

In doing so, I engage with a tradition that spans centuries: models are used, copied, and transformed to generate new images. At the same time, these ornaments are not neutral. They function as carriers of cultural codes — signs of order, belief, and power. Historically, ornament was closely tied to systems of representation, hierarchy, and control, shaping how space, bodies, and values were perceived.

By reworking these structures, I both continue and disrupt this lineage. The resulting drawings translate historical visual systems into a contemporary context, allowing them to shift, dissolve, and reconfigure — and to reveal the underlying dynamics they once helped to stabilize.