Carbon is our friend and foe.
It is the main substance of the material with which Raquel Maulwurf (1975) makes her drawings with which she gives the viewer an almost sublime experience.
The carbon in her charcoal and black chalk creates the darkness of the universe in which stars or whole galaxies light up, or the nocturnal rolling waves of a deep ocean without any signs of life.
However, she also shows the material itself which is being burned to give us heat and light.
Carbon as it is mined as coal, has taken thousands or even millions of years to be formed, while we may change it into smoke and ashes in less than a day, and polluting our environment when doing so.
Also charcoal, Maulwurf’s main material, is the result of burning wood, destruction by fire.
This dualistic quality is also in her present show at Livingstone Gallery where she shows installations and both monumental and smaller drawings in an impressive ensemble.
© Villa Next Door 2020
Contents of all photographs courtesy to Raquel Maulwurf and Livingstone Gallery, Den Haag.
Bertus Pieters
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