Tracy Chaplin Millinery and Creative Workshops
Abstract Collage Workshop with Cordula Kagemann
September 20th - 24th 2027
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We are delighted to be hosting artist and teacher Cordula Kagemann on this five day retreat. The workshop will focus on creating abstract art and will be suitable for all skill levels.
Cordula Kagemann is a German visual artist working primarily in abstract collage. Combining paper and paint, she creates layered compositions that evoke a quiet yet powerful sense of place. With a background in abstract painting and art education, she has developed a distinctive visual language rooted in material sensitivity and attentive perception. Her work explores themes of landscape, memory, and transformation. Rather than depicting specific locations, she responds to the lived experience of being in a place — shifting horizons, subtle light, traces of weather, and the passage of time. Through layering, covering, and revealing, her process mirrors the rhythms of landscape itself. In recent years, her practice has moved toward more open spatial structures inspired by direct perception. This attentiveness to atmosphere and environment also informs her teaching. In her workshops, she invites participants to slow down, observe deeply, and translate their sensory experience into a personal visual language. Cordula's work has been shown in selected exhibitions in Germany and internationally. She is known for her thoughtful guidance, encouraging artists to trust process, material, and their own way of seeing.
We are excited to have the opportunity to host Cordula for a five-day retreat at our home near Toulouse. During the workshop you will be working in a wide landscape — rolling hills, open horizons, and the Pyrenees in the distance. Close by is the village of Aurignac, which gave its name to one of the earliest prehistoric cultures in Europe, the Aurignacian culture. This part of Southern France carries a calm, earthy quality and ancient history that invites us to slow down, to listen, and to truly see. Rather than simply depicting the landscape, we enter into a dialogue with it. We notice what draws us in — shifting shadows, the rhythm of hills against the sky, a subtle meeting of colours. Through photography, drawing, small colour studies, frottage, monoprint and paper cutting, we gather fragments and impressions that become the foundation for our mixed media artwork. Perception exercises and small excursions support us in experiencing the landscape as a living presence. Instead of creating “beautiful landscapes,” we focus on giving form to our personal resonance with the land. The wide horizon of the Pyrenees may become a mirror for inner spaciousness and clarity — a subtle connection between sky and earth. The workshop is open to all levels. What matters most is the willingness to engage — with the land, with your creative process, and with whatever wants to unfold.
For further information and to book, please follow the link below: -