They Call Me Witch
Artist & Works

Patricia Petersen


Patricia Petersen is a Danish/Polish multidisciplinary artist working across moving
image, photography, sculpture, perforamce and text. Her work explores entanglements of (post)memory, rituals, ecologies and the body through a lens of poetic absurdity.
Patricia’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at Festival Circulation(s)(FR), Arden Asbæk Gallery (DK), and Four Corners (UK). She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Wimbledon College of Arts (UAL) and an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art. She is a member of the artist collectives Rethinking Eastern Europe and SLAWS ANEW, and currently an artist in residence at
Platform 1 Gallery.

website:patriciapetersen.com
ins: @patriciaisabel



Leftovers (Jeg Skal Puste I Deg) (2024)


 
Bisque fired clay,wax candle,29 x 28,5 x 11 cm


Leftovers (Jeg skal puste I deg) (2024) is part of Petersen’s sculptural series titled
‘Leftovers’, which explores how trauma is embodied, transmitted, and carried on by new
generations, in new bodies, vessels storing memory and trauma preceding linear time. The
series is inspired by a conversation at the artist’s family dinner table, where the women
unpacked silenced gendered generational trauma sparked by a family photograph.
By working with clay, Petersen connects the ideas of bodily memory to the concept of clay
memory, a term that describes the material’s capacity to retain traces of touch and
manipulation. Each gesture, pressure, and impression is preserved within the clay’s surface.
“Jeg skal puste I deg” is from a text written the artists late friend Vibeke before her passing,
and is Norwegian for “I will breathe through you”. The words resonate as an invocation of
continuity: of breath,memory, care, and solidarity passed between bodies, across time.