Carmen Schabracq: I will eat you alive
Our latest edition features Carmen Schabracq’s “I Will Eat You Alive”, a two colour lino print handmade by the artist. Based in Amsterdam, Schabracq works across painting, printmaking, costume and sculpture. Her edition, finished with hand-painted details, embodies the ambiguous primordial strength of a mother nourishing her child—an act of unconditional love that consumes them both. We sit down with her in her studio, a space overflowing with her own works.
The mother, the wolf, Little Red Riding Hood—these figures keep returning in your work. What is it about them?
I love stories—fairy tales, myths and folklore. They create a form of stability in life. Archetypes, in particular, I find so beautiful because they come from our collective subconscious, appearing in different forms in many cultures worldwide. They carry a universal meaning while they are different everywhere at the same time.
As soon as you give a character an image—depicting them in a painting—it comes to life.
There’s a theatrical feeling in your studio, almost like stepping backstage.
Yes, theatrical exaggeration is sometimes part of these figures, and I love playing with that in my work. Masks are the ultimate way to bring them to life. By wearing a mask, you temporarily become something or someone else—the "other." When you create masks of certain archetypes, they allow you to step into another identity—whether it’s an archetypal figure like the mother, the wolf, or the bear, or another entity like the spirit of an ancestor. It’s a form of embodiment.
I do think there’s a performative element in much of my work, including the work on paper. In both, you see a figure in action or stillness, you see them being. Just like how a photo can be proof of someone’s existence—there’s often a narrative in the way the figure is depicted, which can become the performative element.
Motherhood runs through your work, but it is not only personal: it almost seems as if there is a larger, collective energy at work.
That’s true. The theme of motherhood interested me long before I became a mother myself. The mother is such a strong archetype—birth and breastfeeding are strong archetypal actions. For me, the mother represents fertility, giving birth, passing on life, generations, ancestors, identity and life cycles. But she’s also paradoxical. In some stories, the mother is a devouring creature, both destructive and creative at the same time. Being a mother can be exhausting, yet it brings so much love and joy. These contradictions are very interesting to me. I’m always drawn to the multi-layered nature of a character or identity.
“In some stories, the mother is a devouring creature, both destructive and creative at the same time.”
What excites you at the moment? What’s pulling you forward?
Right now, I’m greatly interested in the horse as an archetype. For my last solo exhibition, When Roots Start Riding Horses, I researched my Jewish ancestors and the meaning of my family name, Schabracq, which means "horse cloth." My ancestors came to Amsterdam from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 18th century. I’ve been using the horse as a symbol of migration—of generations moving through places and time. The horse has traditionally been the faithful carrier of humankind.
Currently, I’m working on horse sculptures, masks, horse blankets, and paper works around this theme. I’ve also created horse cloths shaped like a woman in labor and plan to make a series that can be carried by real horses. I want these horses to walk in a circle as a performance—a life cycle carried by horses.
Words and images by Kees de Klein