If anyone can claim to be ahead of their time, it’s Swiss artist and healer Emma Kunz. Born in rural Brittnau to a family of weavers in 1892, she began exhibiting clairvoyant tendencies as a young girl, quickly becoming obsessed with the mystical powers of the natural world. Childhood friends recalled her standing barefoot near trees to feel their spiritual vibrations – frequently “prospecting” around the countryside for sources of terrestrial radiation. She believed that plants and minerals could transmit restorative energy, and even discovered the healing rock AION A, meaning “without limitation”, in the Roman Quarry near Würenlos. Tales of her miraculous healing abilities spread throughout Switzerland in her lifetime, and AION A is still sold in chemists in powdered form to tackle inflammation today.
Even more remarkable, however, are her drawings – in spite of the fact that she never had any formal training and is hardly known by the general public. In fact, her works were never exhibited in her lifetime. (Kunz herself predicted that they were only meant to be appreciated in the 21st century.) Nevertheless, from 1938 onward, the artist dedicated herself to practicing radiesthesia – a technique that involved asking a divining jade “pendulum” a question, then letting it guide the movement of her pencil. She believed the answer to any query could be found in the resulting geometric lines and shapes – frequently using this method to diagnose ailing patients.
By the time of her death in 1963, she had amassed more than 400 drawings, some of which she worked on for more than 24 consecutive hours. None of the canvases are dated or titled, and Kunz rejected the notion that there was a single interpretation for any of her works. Asked to describe them, she would say that they were “shape and form expressed as measurement, rhythm, symbol and transformation of figure and principle”. Yet, her focus on healing through connection – to one’s true self and the natural world – never wavered and she believed that her canvases were an ideal vehicle to manifest it. “Everything happens in accordance with a specific system of law, which I feel within me, and which never allows me to rest,” she once wrote.
Scroll down for a preview of some of her exquisite drawings, and visit Emma Kunz: Visionary Drawings at the Serpentine Gallery from March 23 to see more than 60 of her rarely shown drawings.
