Cyrilla Mozenter. The Failed Utopian

About

In the failed utopian series, she continues her work with felt and handmade paper with elements of collage, boldly incorporating red, blue, ochre, green, and pink. Using pictogram-like images along with letters and words, Mozenter invents her own language, leaving interpretations of the work to the viewer.

Mozenter works with felt, a textile of ancient origin made from matted and consolidated tangles of animal fur suggesting a compressed chaos. The work is never pre-planned. Stitching the cut-out shapes perfectly into the felt ground goes against felt’s natural inclination to buckle, stretch, droop, and torque, which brings an element of chance and unexpected dimensionality to the work. Her banner-like felt pieces reference medieval heraldry and have a tapestry-like presence due to their size and physicality. Mozenter views the large felt wall pieces as sculptures with a two-dimensional organization.

In the failed utopian series, the polar bear is an important protagonist, reflecting Mozenter’s thoughts on the animal’s as well as human beings’ adaptations to changing conditions.  Her work on paper is a combination of cut-and pasted elements, pencil, and gouache, revealing the intricate process of their creation. Many of the works-on-paper involve several sheets of paper of varying translucencies sewn together with silk thread, providing the final drawing with glints of light and space.

Mozenter works as directly and unhesitatingly as possible- with each work becoming its own adventure.  She cannot predict what the experience will be or what the evidence of that experience will look like. Both the paper and felt work are embedded with juxtapositions - irregularity in the materials, and precision in her manner of working with them, the sense of immediacy of her execution that is conveyed, along with the gradual realization by the viewer of the obvious time and labor required.

 “I am a birthing nurse, attentive and ready to perform whatever intervention is required. Although the drawings look different one to the next, the accumulation allows deeper consistencies to emerge. My intention is to involve as many levels of myself as possible in this process.”  CM