Anja Schwörer’s works are not the result of adding paint to a canvas; rather, the textile material on a stretcher frame is stripped of colour. The artist explores how industrially manufactured fabrics such as denim, velvet, or polyester react to textile techniques like bleaching or tie-dyeing. Taking geometric figures – the circle, the rectangle, or the line – as points of departure, she also refers to the grids and basic forms which are the foundation of the structure of textiles and the mechanics of the loom. The geometric figures, whose edges always are blurred in Anja Schwörer’s work, point to the individual steps of their genesis, i.e. folding, knotting, or tying. Many works are dyed by hand and inspired by the Japanese Shibori technique. Both the texture and the plasticity of the fabric are emphasized through this method. The artist’s work process is determined by the unpredictable reactions of the material, which reacts to the poured, dunked, or sprayed bleach according to its own rules depending on its weave, elasticity, and colour.
Sometimes, the borders of the bleach poured on the support are blurry or cloud-like, sometimes the folding process on a mesh fabric leads to a superimposition or shifting of diamond or rectangular shapes.