PRESENTATION | THE STORY BEHIND CECILIE WESTH
Cecilie Westh er uddannet modist på Det Kgl. Teater samt uddannet designer på Danmarks Designskole og har desuden gået på flere tegneskoler. I 1999 skabte hun sit eget børnetøjsmærke ” Cecilie Westh Junior”, som hun har ernæret sig ved indtil 2007. I dag har hun taget fat i sin gamle drøm, nemlig at hellige sig maleriet. Således har hun siden 2007 malet, for at finde sig selv og sit udtryk i maleriet.
INSPIRATIONEN OG UDTRYK
Mennesker og ansigter er hendes udtryksform. En fascination af, at vi alle er forskellige, vi er alle mennesker, i grundstammen ens, alligevel kan man hver dag se nye ansigter bare ved at gå en tur på gaden. En iagttagelse af, at selv om vi ikke er perfekte, men er lidt skæve her og der, er der noget smukt ved alle mennesker.
Dog bærer vi fleste på en maske, en facade vi kan tage på en gang imellem, et forsvar for at gemme de inderste følelser, frustrationer, tanker og hemmeligheder, eller for at vise hvem eller hvad vi gerne ville være, en måde vi iscenesætter os selv på over for omverdenen.
I disse malerier har hun både taget udgangspunkt i følelserne bag masken og den facade, der gemmer på hemmeligheder, sorg, humor, glæde, forvirring og forsøg på kontrol!!!
Cecilie Westh was born in Copenhagen, where she still lives and works. Cecilie Westh is a trained milliner on the Danish Royal Theatre. She studied design at Danish Design School, Copenhagen and had her own children’s cloth company for eight years. In 2007 she started painting and has shown work in group and solo shows in her native, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Paris, Sweden.
INSPIRATION AND EXPRESSION
Cecilie Westh’s works depict the human condition, the way we stage-manage our life and our underlying emotions. They portray the masks we put on and take off in our effort to fit in, masks that can be interchanged to reflect who or what we aspire to be. Her works are portrayals of the complexity of humankind, the beauty of imperfection, the quirky and the whimsical. Her characters lend themselves to the public eye with proportions that transcend accepted ideals of beauty. They live in their own world but engage in small, everyday challenges and situations, which are rendered with humor and poetry.
Cecilie Westh’s work reflects a woman’s view of herself. She turns her thoughts inside out. For instance – are we humans for sale? Not necessarily for money, but we have sold our souls to society and to the things that are expected of us and to the role we have taken upon ourselves to fulfil – or for different reasons have adopted – in our yearning for the easy life. And so! What came first – the chicken or the egg, the hen, surrogate mother or the housewife? She plays with horns and wings, good and evil, with a battle that is to be fought, perhaps just in the kitchen or perhaps in our inner heart. She toys with global ideas, situations that many of us recognize from real life with familiar setups that we perhaps see in ourselves.