Cecilia Vicuña has made a lifelong mission to reinvent the quipu, (meaning ‘knot’ in the Quechua language) an ancient system of coloured, knotted threads from the Andean mountains, once used for keeping records, telling stories, recording communal rules, and even writing poems. Throughout her career, which has spanned more than five decades, she has produced…
Category Archives: PIONEERS
The soft sculptures of Maria A. Guzmán Capron depict larger-than-life curvy, vibrant characters whose joyful effervescence reflects the rich complexity of Capron’s multicultural identity, which spans Europe, South America and the United States. She says, “I need a variety of sources, because that is the only way I will approximate the complexity of a self…
Artist, designer and thinker, Josef Frank was an outspoken pioneer, whose practice spanned diverse disciplines, including art, architecture and textiles. In his textile and embroidery work he broke away from the simplicity of modernism with fluid, organic repeat patterns designed entirely by hand, featuring swirling flora and fauna in bold, Matisse-like motifs and intensely vivid…
Chilean arpilleras might at first look like playful, whimsical patchworks, featuring brightly coloured houses, scattered children and blazing suns. But closer inspection reveal that they are a potent, emotionally raw form of resistance and rebellion, one that emerged during the brutalist regime of Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1989. While women were forced into submissive silence by…
There is a curious and unexpected dichotomy between sound and fabric in the art of Vivian Caccuri, inviting us to consider the ways in which the two are more closely interrelated than we might at first think. Primarily a sound-based artist, her recent forays into textiles has provided a tactile and sensorial element to her…
Hailing from Johannesburg, textile artist Billie Zangewa makes intricate stitched collages from raw silk that celebrate the joys and struggles of her life as a black woman and mother. Her work reflects on the ways in which black women’s wider political status bleeds into their everyday lives, a process she calls “daily feminism.” Yet there…
The tapestries of American textile artist Erin M. Riley are remarkably frank, depicting dark and emotionally raw subjects ranging from nude selfies and private wounds to messy, unkept tabletops scattered with the kind of awkward detritus that would make most cringe with embarrassment. In doing so, her art becomes a powerful form of catharsis, laying…
Contemporary textile designer Lisa King makes striking prints which are an eclectic blend of influences, from the lush plant life of her childhood in Thailand to her mother’s vibrant collection of textiles and antiquities, her background training as a dancer, and her current life in industrialised London. She says, “I draw a lot of parallels…
Personal and collective stories about place and the need for belonging are woven tightly into the textile art of South African contemporary artist Igshaan Adams. His richly layered visual language brings together everyday ephemera from his home town, including shells, nylon rope, strips of fabric, plied cords, and beads. But it is also conceptually bound…
Egyptian-French artist Ghada Amer has a widely varied practice spanning sculpture, printmaking, video and installation, but she is arguably best known for her alternative embroidered paintings. From a distance, they might look like expressionistic canvases, but peek closer and they are laced with hidden elements of erotica aimed not for the male gaze, but for…
With a history spanning five centuries, the Navajo (or Diné) weavers of the Southwest United States are among the greatest and most influential innovators the US has ever produced. Their traditional weavings and garments throughout American history are undoubtedly fascinating artefacts with rich stories to tell about the lives and spiritual beliefs of Native Americans….
Look closely at any traditional bordered garment made by the Navajo Weavers of Arizona, and it is likely that you’ll notice a small, but deliberate imperfection; a line of contrasting thread running from the inner design field into the outer layer. This line of thread is a release point from where the maker’s ch’ihónít’i, or…
Fashion designer and multi-disciplinary artist Adriana Meunié makes work which responds to the traditional materials and crafts of Mallorca, where she grew up and now resides. She works with raw, organic materials such as wool and raffia to create weavings and garments loaded with richly sensorial, tactile properties, asking us to consider their roots as…
Rhiannon Griego’s striking textile art is a fusion of old and new, merging the geometric patterns of modernity with the ancient practices of weaving. While on the one hand she draws on her family’s long history of weaving in New Mexico, she also takes a fresh new approach, responding intuitively to the rhythms, patterns and…
Swiss designer and artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp was one of the most significant and influential voices of the early 20th century, with a multidisciplinary practice that spanned embroidery, beadwork, textiles, painting, sculpture, furniture design and more. She successfully blurred the boundaries between fine art and design, bringing the same inventive, playful and instantly eye-catching brand of…
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25 Feb 2024 @ 1:00 am by Alice Byrne
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