Annegret Soltau is a German visual artist. Photomontages of her own body and face sewn over or collaged with black thread are her most well known works. She uses the technique of black thread to portray the idea of identity and disguise. Her work questions personal identity on an abstract scale. For example, ‘Selbst’ is a chapter where she ties her face up with black thread in geometric patterns, this distorts and intensifies the beauty of her face. Through these self harming self-portraits, she demonstrates her story as a woman and the forced place women have had in society for many centuries. It was the first project where Soltau used a needle and thread to draw over a photograph and this style has become her hallmark. Annegret Soltau writes her story as a woman on the blank page of her face; it is a history of conflict, impulsive reactions to the family environment and the marginal position of women in the social context.

Her first project using thread in photography is titled ‘Selbst’. Using black thread, she stitched over self portraits into geometric patterns which joins the features of her face and enhance her beauty, or physically wraps the thread into a cocoon form which acts as a binding force, distorting her appearance through cutting into the flesh and removing freedom of movement. Her work with black thread seems to have a lot of symbolism behind it. At the same time, she is presenting herself as a women pushing against the role her sex has had in society for centuries through using the thread as a cocoon suggesting she will emerge as a new woman. However, one could argue that the cocoon signifies the oppression she has experienced as a woman. Furthermore, the thread cutting into her flesh and obscuring her features could be recalling her abusive childhood and the scars it left.

I have chosen Annegret Soltau as one of my references because the concept through her use of thread is intriguing. Like Soltau, I want to collage my images with thread to form geometric patterns which joins features on my face. The thread could act as a metaphor for the uncertainty and instability in my life. This could showcase that movement doesn’t necessarily mean freedom. Although constant movement can be exciting it doesn’t allow you to settle down in one place. It’s restricting in the way that you feel out of place, a sense of not feeling like you belong at “home”. This would be an interesting technique to carry out in my own work because of the symbolism behind it.