Bio

Chantel Mierau is a Winnipeg-based artist originally from a farm near Saskatoon, SK/Treaty 6 Territory. She works in textiles, video, printmaking and performance which interrogate the Protestant work ethic of her Mennonite upbringing. Her house is messy. She holds a BFA from the University of Manitoba.

Works

Busy Napping

  • 2020
  • Chantel Mierau

Busy Napping imagines sleep being embodied in and behaving like wax and examines this idea in extreme close up. In this scenario, waking up creates a mess that needs to be addressed using laundry tips for getting wax out of linens.

Busy Napping

Dough Clepsydra

  • 2020
  • Chantel Mierau

A moon-like ball of dough is rolled out. Abbreviations of the months of the year appear on the dough, and are cut apart.

Dough Clepsydra

Obraumche (How to get the sweet from the centre)

  • 2020
  • Chantel Mierau

Obraumche is a Plautdietsch word that refers to the centre, most delicious part of watermelon. In this work, the artist forms a drain clog, and then works to find its “Obraumche”. Instead of dealing with the delicious, this work is an interplay of gross textures resulting from the body’s activities.

Obraumche

Hatching

  • 2013
  • Chantel Mierau

To hatch is to struggle to get out of an place of idyllic warmth, nourishment and safety before it kills you. A hand, wrapped in layer upon layer of white thread hangs like a cocoon from above. We watch in close-up as the hand fights to free itself.

Hatching

Larva

  • 2013
  • Chantel Mierau

Someone wearing a pink, hand-knit, vaguely larva-like suit tries very hard to complete a simple task, but is restricted by coziness.

Larva

There Were Socks

  • 2013
  • Chantel Mierau

Against a narrative composed half of laundry tips and half of the creation story of Genesis chapter 1, white and black clouds of socks drift by.

There Were Socks

Wednesday-ing

  • 2013
  • Chantel Mierau

In this looped video, women in a quilting-bee configuration weave delicate replicas of spider webs.

Wednesday-ing

The Clean house

  • 2011
  • Chantel Mierau

In this two channel video, the image of cutting and sewing a pure white cloth underpins a narration about clean laundry, comfortable chairs, moths, dust and death, drawing parallels between repetition in the home, and tradition in the House of God.

The Clean House

One for Each of My Vanities

  • 2011
  • Chantel Mierau

A woman simultaneously adorns and disfigures herself by sewing tassels onto a flesh-coloured cloth mask, creating a beard. Perhaps she is guarding herself against vanity; perhaps she is atoning for it.

One for Each of My Vanities

Sweaters

  • 2010
  • Chantel Mierau

This piece was created as a self-portrait using clothing as a means of talking about the body, discomfort and futility.

Sweaters