ACTS OF ATTENTIONS • etc
Camilla Howalt - Malmö-based artist
I create layered, textured works across painting, textiles, and photography that unfold as poetic blueprints — self-developed structures guiding my explorations of memory, feeling, and longing. Each piece holds a unique architecture that weaves material, composition, and emotion into contemplative visual maps of mind and place.
POIESIS
Poiesis, from the ancient Greek ποιεῖν - “to make.” A word that pulses through language and matter, entwined with poetry, its close kin. In biology, hematopoiesis speaks of the formation of blood cells - life itself in a state of becoming. In art, poiesis is the act of bringing forth, of making the unseen visible. It is both process and transformation, a continuous unfolding, shaped not just by thought but by the haptic - the felt sense of making, the intimate conversation between hand and material.
A practice rooted in attentiveness to presence, silence, and the poetics of being. Materials - photographic transfers, pigment, thread, paper, fabric - are not tools but thresholds. They hold memory in texture, resistance in weight, invitation in their grain. Every gesture is a contact, each surface a trace of encounter. Between constraint and expression, an unfolding - tactile, relational, felt.
These works do not illustrate. They trace, press, absorb. They are attuned to the slow urgency of touch - to trembles, to trepidations, to the silent feedback loop of material listening back.
IN / EX HIBITION
To inhibit is to hold back, restrain, keep within. To exhibit is to display, reveal, bring into presence. These opposing forces shape the act of showing - between concealment and revelation, intimacy and exposure, withholding and offering.
From the Latin exhibere - to hold out, to present - exhibition is not just a space for art but a gesture, an encounter, a negotiation between what is seen and what remains just beyond sight. It is sustenance, a way of holding space, a way of giving and receiving.
You can view my collection of artworks under WORKS.
For commissions or enquiries, please reach out via CONTACT.
To receive studio updates, sign up to my ATELIER ETC.
And for deeper reflections, visit NOTES ETC - a paid blog on art, aesthetics and process.
I look forward to meeting you.
Camilla Howalt
NOTES ETC is a paid blog. Subscribe for access.
Access NOTES ETC for a one-time fee - a lifetime invitation to read at your own pace.
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NOTES ETC is private space for reflection - where the process of making and thinking unfold in relation.
It brings together writing on art and aesthetics, psychoanalysis, architecture, literature, and cultural history - alongside fragments from the studio. It is shaped by a commitment to form, material, and the questions that arise between them.
The entries trace shifts in perception, explore the historical and visceral presence of art, and map states of relation - physiological, psychological, and philosophical.
It is not a promotional platform, but a body of thought in motion, accompanying the creation of the visual and written artwork..
MEET THE ARTIST & THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE WORK •
Dear reader,
What you’ll find here is a practice of traces - evolving blueprints of perception and presence. My work unfolds through poiesis: a process of listening, tracing, and making. Colour, texture, and composition come together not to explain, but to hold space for what’s unfolding - what’s near, what’s disappearing.
I move through inner and outer architectural landscapes - portraits of experience - with materials that speak back: pigment, thread, fabric, photographic layers. These surfaces hold memory and sensation in tension - mapping emotional states, unravelling impressions, knotting complexity into tactile form.
This practice isn’t about answers. It’s about staying close to the weave - where sensuality, introspection, and rupture meet. Each piece becomes a kind of offering: an intimate space where meaning can remain unfinished, and something unnamed might begin to surface.
Thank you for being here.
If you’re curious to go deeper, I’ve written more about my process in the [Artist Statement].
Warmly,
Camilla
To learn more about my practice, visit