Unruly Matter

The idea behind Unruly Matter in Maria Kunigk’s work is both conceptual and material. It refers to her deliberate embrace of what resists order—emotionally, visually, and physically. “Unruly” here signals a refusal to conform to polished expectations: her materials are allowed to wander, bleed, glitch, and break from tradition. “Matter” speaks to both the physical stuff of her work (thread, pigment, image) and the deeper subjects she addresses—absence, memory, belonging, and displacement.

Rather than controlling every element, Kunigk creates space for imperfection, instability, and unresolved emotion. Unruly Matter becomes a strategy of letting go, allowing fragility, adaptation, and ambiguity to guide the process. The result is work that hovers between presence and absence, structure and collapse—always in flux, quietly insistent, and deeply human.