Tactile and filled with material presence, Friess’ work hovers on the threshold of familiarity and estrangement, damage and repair, protection and abandonment, inside and outside, attractive and repulsive. It is within this flux of opposing ideas that the artist endeavours to cultivate an awareness of the interdependent relationships and precariousness inherent in ideas, places, objects and subjectivities. All conditions are fragile and can shift easily. This awareness becomes pivotal in acknowledging our collective vulnerabilities and mutual dependencies, forming the groundwork for an ethos of care — a central tenet in Friess’ artistic pursuits derived from her background as a surgical nurse. Surgery embodies the act of selflessly and collectively caring for a stranger. Further it is a subject marked by the dissolution of boundaries as manifested in the paradox of healing through incisions, the entanglement of life and mortality, the relation between bodily suffering and strength, the juxtaposition of the beauty of the human body and its components often perceived as repulsive or abject. These tensions are at the heart of Friess’ practice.

Carola Friess (b.1986, Hannover, Germany) lives and works in Cape Town. She obtained a BFA from Muthesius Academy of Arts and Design in Kiel (2019) and an MFA from the University of Cape Town (2022). She was awarded a DAAD Fellowship in 2021 and has been included in numerous group exhibitions. Her former profession as a surgical nurse plays a key role in shaping her artistic practice, informing both its material language and its engagement with care, vulnerability, and the body.

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