Austrian artist Gudrun Kampl studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. A wide-range of scholarships led her to Paris, New York, Brazil and India.
Gudrun Kampl is an artist who intensively focuses on material and function of human bodies and clothes. Textile materials as well as techniques from the field of applied arts are frequently an adequate medium in the examination of the themes in the context of wrapping, skin, surface, clothing and identity.
The use of fabric has a real meaning for the artist. Clothes seem to be an authentic testament of the body because they are witnesses of physical contact. Her fabrics are mostly findings, testimonies of personal use, already loaded with a story. She is interested in these stories and the preservation of the traces originated from physical contact.
The material particularly loved by Gudrun is velvet, used as we know, for seduction. Velvet like fabric in general is not associated with femininity only because of the way it clings to the body, but also because it is a very absorbing material. It absorbs liquids, it changes color, it assumes odors and it is vulnerable. The velvet feels erotic and comfortable on the skin. By using it, she can produce a feeling of intimacy and familiarity.
