Cloth Fighting

This work by Anna Verweij, or simply Anna for short, could be described as a wrestle in cloth form. The wall hanging consists of a single piece of cotton, finished around the edges with decorative stitching, peeling away from the wall. Two pairs of legs can be seen at the bottom of the piece. Her oeuvre is often autobiographical – but who is Anna actually fighting with in this life-size textile piece? With herself, aware that a wasting disease meant she did not have much longer to live? With the critics, who often viewed her work as ‘applied art’? With her husband, artist Hans Verweij, who represented the world of artistic self-expression? Or is Anna drawing on other sources and taking her inspiration from the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, for example? This work by Anna hovers between the worlds of visual art and applied art, but she participated in discussions between these two worlds as little as possible.