Sewing (a) Woman
As the initiating work in Švalje (The Seamstresses), this piece establishes the central operation of the series: incision, stitching, and the transformation of the painted surface into a surrogate body.
Unlike the later works, the seam here is constructed internally using a saddle stitch traditionally associated with leatherwork and the manual joining of resistant material. This structural difference shifts the gesture away from visible repair toward containment from within, producing the impression that the surface has been forcibly held together beneath its exterior appearance.
The title remains intentionally unstable. Sewing a woman may describe an act of construction, restoration, discipline, or violence. At the same time, the phrase can also be read as sewing woman — suggesting a figure engaged in the inherited labor of repair itself.
The vertical red trace functions simultaneously as wound, seam, and declaration.
The body appears assembled,
but the procedure remains visible.
