Emma Kunz was born in 1892 in Brittnau, Aargau. The daughter of a weaver, she grew up in modest circumstances, received no formal artistic training, and was never considered an artist during her lifetime. She did not start drawing until the age of forty-six, eight years after publishing Leben, a collection of poems.
In her teens, she started using a pendulum for divinatory activities as a healer and dowser. A “spiritualist” artist, she is known for her predictions and some 500 works derived from a paranormal world. Her creations reveal the “waves” that she believed were emitted by living beings, as well as “energy flows” that she perceived through a kind of sixth sense.
When she started creating large-format works on graph paper in 1938, she transcribed movements dictated by her pendulum: she had to stop at certain precise points on the sheet, interlink them, and then add a succession of lines in a spider-like way, sometimes working more than twenty-four hours without interruption. This resulted in radiant, kaleidoscopic structures that calm or hypnotise the eyes. They should be understood as answers to her questions more than self-contained works of art.
“My work is intended for the twenty-first century,” Emma Kunz explained, convinced that her works would be better understood over time. The first exhibition of her drawings was presented in Aarau ten years after her death. Others were subsequently held in Düsseldorf and Paris, helping to elevate her creations to the status of artworks, and establishing her as a pioneer of abstract and esoteric art.
In her teens, she started using a pendulum for divinatory activities as a healer and dowser. A “spiritualist” artist, she is known for her predictions and some 500 works derived from a paranormal world. Her creations reveal the “waves” that she believed were emitted by living beings, as well as “energy flows” that she perceived through a kind of sixth sense.
When she started creating large-format works on graph paper in 1938, she transcribed movements dictated by her pendulum: she had to stop at certain precise points on the sheet, interlink them, and then add a succession of lines in a spider-like way, sometimes working more than twenty-four hours without interruption. This resulted in radiant, kaleidoscopic structures that calm or hypnotise the eyes. They should be understood as answers to her questions more than self-contained works of art.
“My work is intended for the twenty-first century,” Emma Kunz explained, convinced that her works would be better understood over time. The first exhibition of her drawings was presented in Aarau ten years after her death. Others were subsequently held in Düsseldorf and Paris, helping to elevate her creations to the status of artworks, and establishing her as a pioneer of abstract and esoteric art.
