Linde Pieper

‘With Open Arms’ is a developing series of prints which explores the fleetingness of life and memory. In this series, I work with five small dresses that once belonged to my mother (1929-2012) when she was very little.  I have carried them with me for many years, through moves and changing homes, without fully knowing how or when they came into my possession. I only knew that one day they would find their way into my work.

In the current phase of the project, I focus on a single dress, repeatedly passing it through the printing press. With each passing, the fragile fabric is pushed closer to its breaking point. This process has become both meaningful and emotional: an act of making that invites reflection on my mother’s life, which was marked by difficulty. When she once wore this dress, her life still lay ahead of her, filled with possibility and hope.

Through the repeated act of printing, the dress becomes a symbol for the fragile and fleeting nature of life, putting us under a multitude of pressures. Each passage through the press leaves its trace: stretches and tears marking the surface. Yet within this strain, a quiet beauty and vulnerability are left behind on the resulting print.

The title With Open Arms refers to the giving and receiving of love, a gesture both simple and profound. It is a language we begin learning in our earliest moments of life, long before we understand its weight, and one we continue to practice throughout our lives.

In this work the dress becomes a vessel holding both the tenderness of beginnings and the weight of time.