"Silke Mansholt's work is characterized by honesty, clarity and a maturity of thought. Her process is alchemical and ancient. Hand made narratives are woven together with real objects, time and space to make a luminous cloth of singular intensity and originality. Silke' s work shows us new worlds and spirits with conviction and confidence, exemplifying years of practice and familiarity with this otherness."
Goat Island, Chicago

Silke Mansholt works as a visual and performance artist, writer and filmmaker. She creates work because she has to, though the motivation to do so has changed recently. In the past the work has possibly (we will never know) emerged out of a need for expression, today it is a nearly voluntary devotion to the expansion of consciousness. One can question whether it is ever necessary to do something, anything, but it is certain that Mansholt feels a powerful urge to manifest her ideas.

In the art world Joseph Beuys has been one of her main influences. As invisible mentor he has encouraged her to explore her Germanic roots. The filmmakers Tarkovsky, Bergman and Allen joined her on the god-searching path. To Mansholt though nature is the ultimate womb. Her ideas arrive on walks through land that gives what most human creations cannot give, true peace. She asks that she might be used as a channel for universal transformative energy. She practises to give the artistic process into the hands of spirit.

Homage to the Heart, Orphan (Bluecoat Liverpool commission), Cure for Control, Die Gehängte (SEA funded) and In Memoriam Nature (Chelsea Theatre commission) have been the bigger performances she has created in England. They all explore the exhausting but rewarding journey of liberation from the past, which ultimately does not exist. Mansholt presented work nationally and internationally, including performances at the National Review of Live Art 02, 04 and 07, Liverpool Biennial 02 and 04, the City of Woman Festival in Ljubljana and Maribor 2005, Slovenia, Junge Hunde Festival in Aarhus and Copenhagen 2005 and at Trouble2 in Brussels 2006.

She is currently working on a film and book (A German Grandchild’s Funeral, funded by the Arts Council England) which will be available from April 2007. In 2008 she will be in residence for five months at the Centre Dramatique National de Normandie – Comedie de Caen and at La Chartreuse – Centre National des Ecritures du Spectacle to create a new performance piece and book for the theatre in Caen. The work will be presented early 2009.

Solo Performances

Collaborations

Teaching

Education

Further training with

Scholarships – Grants

Contact
www.silkemansholt.com