ARTIST STATEMENT

The common thread in my work is formed by the major events in my life and also in the lives of others, such as motherhood, illness and grief. How is that reflected?
This thread is intertwined with the longing for the place where I want to be. A life long search starting from a feeling of nostalgia and an indefinable melancholy for something or somewhere I don't even have a memory of.

My artworks are drawings with embroidery on canvas or paper. In my spatial artworks I use textiles, embroidery and other materials. Working with textiles and embroidery has been instilled in me from an early age. Still, it was not an obvious choice to use this material. I've slowly grown towards it. In the end, this became the material I prefer to work with the most.

I have a love-hate relationship with time. The works I make are labour-intensive and the work process is slow. It all has to be done by hand, even though this requires a lot of patience. However this does give me the time to change the image or my idea 'during its creation'.

For me embroidery means working with 'the human dimension', just like walking. At work, I'm in a bubble where time slows done. Outside of it everything is restless. Precisely because my works take so much time, there is this rush to make them faster and to make more of them. For me the trick is to be able to allow the indolence; embroidery to slow down life.

BIOGRAPHY

Sonja Hillen was born in 1964 in Gaanderen, the Netherlands.
She studied at the art academy, de Nieuwe Akademie in Utrecht in the Netherlands.
After a career as a nurse, she went in 1999 to the art academy.
Sonja Hillen works and lives in Nijmegen (NL).