L
arge canvases and ceramic pots painted with black and white brushstrokes, drips and gestures fill Malene Birger’s new gallery space in Felanitx. “Black and white is the universe, day and night”, says the Danish designer and artist, who has been devoting her time to painting fulltime for the past eight years. The paintings reveal layers of brushstrokes, lines and shapes, geometric patterns or symbols. Some are like collages of past and present ideas. They are almost always black and white, although an earthy-brown occasionally makes its way onto the canvas as well – perhaps the island’s influence subtly inserting itself into her universe.
Birger was born and raised in Copenhagen, and from an early age, she was taught to knit and crochet by her grandmother and to sew by her mother. As a child, she began making simple dresses and clothing items, laying the seeds for her eventual success in fashion, having run and then sold two brands: Day Birger et Mikkelsen, which she started in the mid 1990´s, and By Malene Birger, which she founded in 2003. Both brands became international successes. She sold her shares in 2010 and left the fashion world for good, in 2014, to move into her other passion: art and interiors.
