DOUBLE TAKES

Guest post by Kate Myerscough

Through knitting, Madame Tricot plays with the boundaries of humour, kitsch, and the macabre. Before building a reputation for her recognisable knitted sculptures, the artist was first torn between a life and career in science, and one in art. Having previously trained as a doctor under the name Dominique Kaehler Schweizer, she eventually made the decision to immerse herself in an art career, as Madame Tricot.

Influenced by her previous medical training, Tricot’s work explores the concept of life and death. Choosing to knit only perishable substances, she focuses her attention on food and the body; from sausages to fruit and from heads to vital organs, no substance is unknittable. As Tricot describes in her own words, these are works that hang persistently on the edge of life and decay.

In her new book, Delicatessen, Madame Tricot’s work is laid out in all its kitsch surrealism. The folksy connotations of knitting contrast wonderfully with Tricot’s chosen subject and with great humour, she subverts the practice of knitting in an approach that’s intriguing and unsettling in equal measure.

www.madametricot.ch