I am a German citizen living in Canada, that definitely fits the “International” theme. It is an important part of who I am. I’ve been living in Canada for over 16 years now, but the ties to Germany are still strong: family, old and new friends, traditions, landscape, cities and of course, food. I feel at home in both places and I feel privileged to be able to live as I do. There is loyalty to both states and no conflict for me.

I wanted to represent both countries in my piece, but without resorting to clichés. Beer or castles for Germany, hockey or beavers for Canada? No, that wouldn’t do at all. I worked a lot with natural materials this year, so the idea of leaves representing the countries came up. Also, the Canadian flag features a maple leaf, so that was easy. The other leaf is an oak leaf as the oak is the national tree of Germany and the oak leaf has been a prominent symbol for Germany since the mid 1800s. For example, it is featured on German Euro coins, and on official clothing.

I decided to use only the colours of the flags of both countries, red and white for the Canadian flag, and black, red and golden yellow for the German flag.

The background fabric is monoprinted with black acrylic paint.

I included a wash of blue ink to refer to the flag of another country I lived in for two years: Australia.  

Dual Allegiance

40″ x 40″

mono printed and commercial cotton, non-woven material

piecing, raw egde applique, machine quilting