The Coexistence of the Destroyed and the Impeccable — Meike Legler in Conversation
Meike
Legler
Los Angeles → Alzenau, Germany · Former clothing factory studio · meikelegler.world
Fashion designer turned textile artist. She buries bed sheets in Los Angeles soil for eight months, bleaches fabric until it finds its own pattern, and builds collages from vintage military tents, latex, fur and velvet that ask everything about the soul inside a broken body.
A textile artist trained in fashion design, Meike Legler returned to her hometown in Germany after five years in Los Angeles — setting up her studio in a former clothing production factory and continuing to push fabric far beyond its limits.
Tell us about yourself and how you got into art.
"I am a trained fashion designer and always have been liking to sew — one day I decided to try making a 'painting' out of fabrics and it brought me a lot of joy and sparked my interest. It happened very randomly."
"We live in my hometown Alzenau that I left 19 years ago to live and experience the big wide world. My studio is in the next village, just a 10-minute bike ride away, in a former clothing production factory — which is quite funny as I used to work in fashion before I turned towards fine art."
Tell us about your creative process.
"Often I start with the title of the piece that comes to my mind by listening to the news, into myself, or to the people I am surrounded by. The title determines the shapes, colours, and the composition."
"I love using fabrics that have laid outdoors for a long time as the sun and the rain work into the fibres and give it a unique and weathered look."
A found bed sheet buried in the soil of a Los Angeles property for 8 months. Earth, moisture and microorganisms left almost out-of-space like patterns — now integrated into the work.
Bleach changes the colours of fabrics in ways that are not controllable — creating its own irreversible pattern. The medium makes the decision.
Sun and rain work into the fibres over time, giving fabric a unique and weathered look that no dye or paint can replicate.
Vintage military tents · latex · fake fur · vintage linen · drop cloth · velvet · upholstery · curtains · bed sheets · wool · acrylic paint · dirt · clay · crayon.
"The coexistence between the destroyed, dirty, rebellious fabrics and the impeccable, new and clean fabrics — an analogy to our human existence in a body coined by trauma, suffering and grief, and on the other side, our eternal, divine and pure souls."
- Being hurt and hurting
- Trauma
- Suffering
- Failure
- Grief
- Purity
- Lightness
- Reincarnation
- The universe
- Flow
"For me, wellbeing is a state of balance that includes feeling physically strong, good about the work I do, excited to produce new works and being a part of a community that shares my values and views on life and the world."
"It's a feeling of lightness, of things just clicking and being in a flow of creating, getting enough time to reflect and relax."
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From the Antakly Projects archiveArtist whose joyful, bold use of colour and texture in mixed media work resonates directly with Meike's material experimentation and philosophical depth.
Read on Antakly Projects ↗ Textile Art · FeministTextile artist putting rubber tubing and acrylic dowels through an ancestral loom, using weaving as feminist activism. A kindred spirit in unorthodox material practice.
Read on Antakly Projects ↗Antakly Projects — originally Ninu Nina — has been in conversation with artists, designers, photographers and creatives from around the world since 2003. Meike Legler's practice — cosmic, material, and quietly transformative — is exactly the kind of work this archive was built to hold.
Visit meikelegler.world → · Explore the archive →
And for the personal rants, opinions you didn't ask for, and the occasional existential spiral: follow me on Substack.
The coexistence of the destroyed and the impeccable. ✦
The textile artist with a fashion design degree moved back to Germany last year after living 5 years in Los Angeles.
We live in my hometown Alzenau that I left 19 years ago to live and experience the big wide world, but with Corona, I felt that with a little kid the idea to live near my folks in an idyllic small town seemed quite attractive. My studio is in the next village, just a 10 minute bike ride away, in a former clothing production factory, which is quite funny as I used to work in fashion before I turned towards fine art.
Your inspirations or influences Meike?
Our universe, books about life after death, reincarnation, decay, humor, music and textures.
Tell us a bit about your creative process and things you are looking forward to this year..
Often I start with the title of the piece that comes to my mind by listening to the news, into myself, or to the people I am surrounded by. The title determines the shapes, colors, and the composition. Sometimes I also just see a composition in front of my inner eye, I draw doodles on paper and then I choose fabrics with different textures to add depth and character.
I love using fabrics that have laid outdoors for a long time as the sun and the rain work into the fibers and give it a unique and weathered look.
In another experiment I buried a found bed sheet in the soil of my friends' property in Los Angeles for 8 months. The earth, moisture and microorganisms left almost out of space like patterns on the sheet that I now use pieces of to integrate into my works.
Bleach is another medium that I have started using as it changes the colors of the fabrics in ways that are not controllable and that creates its own irreversible pattern.
I use the coexistence between the destroyed, dirty, rebellious fabrics and the impeccable, new and clean fabrics to depict an analogy to our human existence in a body that is often coined by experiences like being hurt and hurting, trauma, suffering, failure and grief and on the other side our eternal, divine and pure souls.
In the past 4 years I have created a large body of works in which I have constantly explored the medium fabric. I made collages, hand stitched and glued fabric on top of each other, integrated other media such as paper, acrylic paint, dirt, clay, crayon and used a wide variety of fabrics ranging from vintage military tents, latex, fake fur, vintage linen, drop cloth, velvet, upholstery fabric, curtains, bed sheets and wool. I’ve played with pleats, volume, draping, geometric shapes, organic and fluid shapes and am continuing to explore.
How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the world changing moving forward?
It has at times diminished my motivation to create but then again it has also pushed me to experiment more and try new things.
Yes, it absolutely needs to be improved but besides buying mainly second hand, fairly and sustainable produced clothing and in general buying less I am not the one to offer the big solutions.
Meike what does wellbeing mean to you?
For me, wellbeing is a state of balance that includes feeling physically strong, good about the work I do, excited to produce new works and being a part of a community that shares my values and views on life and the world. It’s a feeling of lightness, of things just clicking and being in a flow of creating, getting enough time to reflect and relax.
www.meikelegler.world
