Emma Kunz (1892-1963) — Work No. 333 [pencil and oil crayon on millimetre graph paper, no date]

Emma Kunz

Emma Kunz

 "Untitled",  c 1940

I went to the Judy Chicago retrospective at the New Museum today and really loved the way she/the curators included a kind of mini overview of works by female geniuses throughout history as part of it. These are just a few--I was so excited to see a piece by Unica Zürn in person!

From top:

Emma Kunz, Work No. 003, no date (circa 1940) Ithell Colquhoun, Alcove, 1946 Unica Zürn, La Serpenta, 1957 Georgiana Houghton, The Spiritual Crown of Annie Mary Howitt Watts, 1867 Hilma af Klint, Group IX/UW, The Dove, no. 2, 1915

Emma Kunz

Emma Kunz Geometric drawings

Emma Kunz, Work number 107, undated.

https://www.emma-kunz.com

Werk-Nr. 172. Emma Kunz.

Werk-Nr. 013. Emma Kunz.

Werk-Nr. 129. Emma Kunz.

Emma Kunz lived from 1892 to 1963 in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. In her lifetime she was recognized as a healer; she herself described herself as a researcher. Now she has acquired an international reputation through her artistic work. Even in her schooldays, Emma Kunz occupied herself with exceptional happenings. When she was 18 years old, she began to use her abilities of telepathy, prophecy and as a healer, and she began to exercise her divining pendulum.

She achieved successes through her advice and treatments that often edged on the limits of miracles. She herself rejected the term miracle because she attributed it to the ability to use and activate powers that lie dormant in everyone. Not least, it was this gift that permitted Emma Kunz to discover in 1941 the power of the Würenlos healing rock that she named AION A. From 1938, Emma Kunz created large-scale pictures on graph paper. She described her creative work as follows: "Shape and form expressed as measurement, rhythm, symbol and transformation of figure and principle". As visionary artist, she bequeathed to us a fascinating collection of her works of art that encodes immeasurable knowledge. The pictures are probably the most direct way to experience Emma Kunz's personality.

Emma Kunz, Drawing No. 012, undated / nicht datiert (1938 - 1963). © Emma Kunz Zentrum

Emma Kunz (1892-1963) — Work No. 2 (pencil, crayon, on millimetre graph paper, ca. 1938)

Emma Kunz, 1940s

Emma Kunz

Went to the City Gallery opening of Angela Lane: Phosphene. Very interesting work. They are very little paintings, like windows to phenomenological moments.

Made me think a lot about science and art.

From the website:

Angela Lane paints wondrous scenes of atmospheric and celestial phenomena. Mysterious messengers or omens hover in the skies, just in sight but almost always beyond our comprehension. Her small landscapes are grounded in the real world but seek out otherworldly or preternatural experiences. They ask us to look up and out, but also back — especially to the long history of artistic and scientific exploration into sky-bound phenomena, and the larger questions surrounding the mysteries of art and existence they speak to. 

Lane’s paintings swirl with the artistic, scientific, and philosophical possibilities that come with moving beyond the surfaces of the world to consider its spirit or essence. Here, she especially communes with German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich who, Lane says, ‘makes the skies speak’, as well as the wider European landscape tradition he is a part of, and the visionary practices of artists like Hilma af Klint, Agnes Pelton and Emma Kunz. These artists all move us between inner and outer worlds, and use art to test the boundaries between seeing, knowing, and believing.  

Phosphene is Lane’s first exhibition in Aotearoa New Zealand since returning from a decade of living in Berlin. It coincides with the release of the book Underworlds: A Compelling Journey through Subterranean Realms, Real and Imagined, written by Stephen Ellcock, which places Lane within the artistic lineages her paintings invoke. 

"Lane’s paintings swirl with the artistic, scientific, and philosophical possibilities that come with moving beyond the surfaces of the world to consider its spirit or essence. "

I find this interesting as with most art, the artists is inspired by the world around them.

My parents are both scientists, which means that their world view is based around an understanding of science, something that I don't have but have grown up around. And even if my work doesn't seem like its directly influenced by science, in many ways it is. This is something I want to explore further in the future.

Emma Kunz