In the intertwined realms of the familiar and unfamiliar, everyday objects serve as a starting point for Friess' artistic explorations. Tactile and filled with material presence, her work hovers on the threshold of damage and repair, protected and abandoned, familiarity and estrangement, inside and outside, attractive and repulsive. It is within this flux of opposing ideas that Friess endeavours to cultivate an awareness of the interdependent relationships and precariousness inherent in ideas, places, objects and subjectivities. This awareness becomes pivotal in acknowledging our collective vulnerabilities and mutual dependencies, forming the groundwork for an ethos of care — a central tenet in Friess' artistic pursuits derived from her background as a surgical nurse.

Surgery embodies the act of selflessly caring for an unfamiliar individual by dissolving boundaries — as manifested in the paradox of healing through incisions, the interweaving of life and mortality, the juxtaposition of the beauty of the human body with aspects often perceived as repulsive or abject, and the relation between suffering and strength.

Carola Friess (b.1986, Hannover, Germany) lives and works in Cape Town. She obtained a BFA from Muthesius Academy of Arts and Design in Kiel (2019) and an MFA from the University of Cape Town (2022). She has been awarded a DAAD Fellowship in 2021.