Fabric of Life
About the exhibition
The Fabric of Life is an exhibition that focuses on the power of textiles to reveal deep psychological narratives carrying myriad themes that encompass personal, social and cultural histories.
Curated by Catherine Loewe
After completing a degree in Art History at the University of East Anglia, Catherine worked at Christie’s, Waddington Galleries and Anthony d’Offay, liaising on gallery and institutional exhibitions for artists Bill Viola, Ellsworth Kelly, Howard Hodgkin, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter amongst others.
Artists 28
Artists 28
Works 56
Interviews 03
About the exhibition
Presented by
Paul Smith Space and Vortic
Curator
Catherine Loewe
Dates
10 Oct 2024 - 03 Jan 2025
The Fabric of Life is an exhibition that focuses on the power of textiles to reveal deep psychological narratives carrying myriad themes that encompass personal, social and cultural histories. The title of the exhibition resonates on several levels, suggesting that just as fabric is made up of multiple threads woven together, so too is the web of life made up of a plethora of complex strands that constitute our individual and collective human experience.
We are delighted to bring together a diverse group of international and intergenerational artists whose practices employ a variety of materials and techniques including weaving, embroidery, sewing, dyeing, tufting, collage, digital and painting, with several works made especially for the exhibition. The versatility of textiles allows the creation of work that fluctuates from figuration to abstraction, featuring both wall-based and three-dimensional pieces. The intrinsically tactile nature of these works offers an entirely new dimension, that of colour, pattern, shape and texture, whether using ancient traditional crafts, recycling materials or incorporating digital technologies, sometimes in combination.
Throughout human history, textiles have played a key role in the cultural traditions and practices of societies around the world. Textiles have been used to preserve histories from one generation to the next, as a potent form of communication and sometimes resistance, as source of cultural pride and economic empowerment. Textiles have a rich history as a powerful narrative tool from early examples such as the epic Bayeux Tapestry (1070-1080 AD) woven by anonymous women to contemporary works that express artistic visions using textiles in new and innovative ways. The narrative tradition through quilting is an example deeply rooted in African American history, with numerous works created during the era of slavery embedding important messages and symbols. Artists such as Tina Williams Brewer, Ferren Gipson and Basil Kinkaid memorialize the legacy of these makers creating exquisite work that explores racial injustice, resilience, spirituality and generational healing.
The artists in this exhibition utilize fabrics conceptually and aesthetically in ways that are both traditional and radical, as an ancient, gendered medium through which to convey new understandings and meanings. Part of its potency lies in the ability to challenge the western art historical canon dominated by centuries of patriarchal society in which sewing, weaving, knitting and quilting was regarded as ‘women’s work’. Historically dismissed by the art establishment, its use in contemporary art can thus be regarded as a subversive element in the practices of both men and women, highlighting omissions and erasures of underrepresented and marginalized sections of society. The present generation unapologetically blur the boundaries between art and craft reclaiming both the medium and their empowerment to address issues such as identity, origin, race and gender stereotyping.
Anne von Freyburg playfully challenges such hierarchies, directly referencing the Rococo Old Masters using exuberantly coloured silks and frivolous tassel embellishments, saying “I paint with materials”. The choice of materials are often explicitly biographical. Anya Paintsil’s distinctive figurative workexplores her dual Welsh and Ghanaian heritage, using a rug hooking method passed down through her mother’s family, who were Anglesey sheep farmers. Sarah Zapata’s experimental techniques reference the rich textile traditions of Peru, abandoning conventional geometric designs in favour of an intuitive process to unravel her identity as a Peruvian-American in the US, a Texan living in New York, a Queer artist raised as an Evangelical Christian. Delphine Dénéreaz bridges the gap between traditional Mediterranean, Moroccan and Turkish Lirette weaving dating back to the 17th century and contemporary pop-culture motifs that relate the story of her daily life in Marseille. Allison Reimus stitches, drapes, bleaches, and hangs painted forms and found fabric into coloured patchworks that tackle notions of messy domesticity and motherhood, whilst cheekily nodding to the formal structures of Modernist Abstraction and the receptor surfaces of ‘Combines’ like Rauschenberg’s Bed. The Brooklyn based artist Erin Riley confronts contemporary ‘selfie’ culture, crafting meticulous tapestries depicting psychologically raw images that expose the gamut of women’s lived experiences and how trauma impacts the search for self-identity.
The thread is associated across cultures with feminine ingenuity, skill and nothing less than human destiny itself, in the personification of the Fates, three women known as the Moirai in the Greek tradition - Clotho the spinner, Lachesis the allotter and Atropos the inflexible, who cuts the thread thus completing the cycle of birth, life and death. The connection to the archetypal feminine, representing the unconscious or anima, is a profound influence on many artists whose holistic world view synthesizes personal narratives with ancient mythology, psychology and aspects of mending or renewal. Bea Bonafini’s evanescent flying and falling forms act as conduits between the earthly and otherworldly, Alice Kettle’s embroidered threads began as a healing process embracing the memory of her mother as maker. Tiffanie Delune’s multi-textural works embark on a spiritual journey, weaving together apparitions in dreams, childhood memories and magical symbols. Emma Talbot’s totemic female figures shimmer with iridescent metallics on silken sewn surfaces, evoking the duality of fragility and strength. Camilla Emson’s sensory practice, informed in part by her somatic therapeutic training, features ink leakages, bleach and looping clusters of thread on recycled fabric, whose shapeshifting forms awaken connections between mind and body. Carolina Mazzolari’s intimate work employs a herringbone technique with cotton, silk and wool thread on hand-dyed linen, revealing metaphorical inner landscapes, the materialization of emotional states of mind.
Materially, aesthetically, symbolically and culturally, fabrics have come a long way and each of the artists in this exhibition push forward the expressive possibilities of this historically loaded medium, in highly distinctive, exciting and beautiful ways. They are the voices of the fabric of life.
Catherine Loewe
After completing a degree in Art History at the University of East Anglia, Catherine worked at Christie’s, Waddington Galleries and Anthony d’Offay, liaising on gallery and institutional exhibitions for artists Bill Viola, Ellsworth Kelly, Howard Hodgkin, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter amongst others. She subsequently worked for art publishers Flash Art, Art + Auction and Ocula, before launching an independent agency developing a wide variety of projects, collections, commissions and exhibitions in collaboration with emerging to established artists. During the pandemic Catherine co-founded the digital platform Eye of the Huntress featuring a critically acclaimed exhibition highlighting women artists, Her Dark Materials, co-curated with Phillipa Adams.
Catherine served on the committee for Kensington & Chelsea Art Festival, London in 2022. Specialising in Modern & Contemporary Art, Catherine has advised a number of private, public and corporate collections in areas including acquisitions, commissions, cultural programmes, philanthropic projects, museum exhibitions, education and events. She has served as a patron of Tate Modern, London and Modern Art Museum, Oxford.
Recent exhibitions and texts with fully illustrated catalogues include: Tete a Tete, Sue Arrowsmith & Ian Davenport, Rob & Nick Carter, Charlotte & Philip Colbert, Rossella Fumasoni & Piero Pizzi Cannella, Emilia & Ilya Kabakov, Carolina Mazzolari & Conrad Shawcross, Annie Morris & Idris Khan, Shirin Neshat & Shoja Azari, with portraits by Maryam Eisler, Mucciaccia Gallery, Rome; Philip Colbert The House of the Lobster, National Archaeological Museum, Naples; Visions, Emma Talbot, Mucciaccia Projects, Rome (2024); Touching the Sky, Sola Olulode & Tiffanie Delune, Mucciaccia Projects, Rome; Philip Colbert The Lobster Empire Via Veneto/San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome (2023); When a Happy Thing Falls, Annie Morris, catalogue text, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK; Rob & Nick Carter, Robot Paintings Sud France, St Paul de Vence, De Buck Gallery (2022); Erwin Wurm, Via Veneto inaugural Sculpture Project, Rome; Lothar Goetz façade commission for Arte in Nuvola, Rome; Colourspace, David Batchelor, Ian Davenport, Lothar Goetz, Jim Lambie, Annie Morris, Fiona Rae, Mucciaccia Gallery, Rome ; Zak Ove, Canboulay, New York, De Buck Gallery; Fiona Banner, Barakat Contemporary, Seoul, Korea (2021); Richard Patterson & Ged Quinn, Rome, Mucciaccia Gallery, Rome (2018).
Kimathi Mafafo
About the artist
b. 1984, South Africa
Kimathi Mafafo (b. 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice ranges from embroidery and oil painting to installation. Mafafo obtained a National Diploma in Fine Arts from the College of Cape Town in 2007 and a National Diploma in Film and Video from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2016. Born in the semi-arid Kimberley in the Northern Cape of South Africa, Mafafo questions historical stereotypes around gender inequality in Africa. She primarily focuses on celebrating the black female and depicting abstracted forms typically surrounded by verdant imagery, characterised by lush greenery and sensuous drapery that are far removed from the dusty mining town where she grew up. She has recently organized a group of Capetonian woman into an informal traditional embroidery society.
Solo exhibitions include (Upcoming) Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, West Palm Beach, USA (2025); Ebullience, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2024); Wandering in the Unknown World, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2023); Kgolagano – A Covenant, Ebony Curated, Cape Town, South Africa (2022); Gestures from The Awakened Mind, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2021); Embolden, Ebony Curated, Cape Town, South Africa (2019); Solo Presentation, at Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Ebony Curated (2018); CITCC, Cape Town, South Africa (2018); Alone in Spring, Ebony Curated, Cape Town, South Africa (2017); Withdrawn, World Art, Cape Town, South Africa (2015).
Group exhibitions include (Upcoming) Fabric of Life, curated by Catherine Loewe, Paul Smith, No9 Albemarle Street, London, UK, (2024); (Upcoming) The Armory Show, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, New York (2024); EXPO Chicago, Ebony Curated, Chicago, IL (2024); Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Generations Section, Ebony Curated, Cape Town, South Africa (2024); Soulscapes, curated by Lisa Anderson, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK (2024); New Wave Art Wknd, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, West Palm Beach, USA (2023); Hiatus, Ebony Curated, Cape Town, South Africa (2023); An Endless Night, curated by Anelisa Mangcu, The Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa (2023); Norval Foundation’s 6th Collectors' Focus: The Kilbourn Collection, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa (2023); Talking Threads, Ode to the Maker: Embroidery WereldMuseum, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2023); EXPO Chicago, Ebony Curated, Chicago, USA (2023); Art Dubai, with Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2023); Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Ebony Curated, South Africa (2023); Also Known As Africa (AKKA), Ebony Curated, Paris, France (2022); Diversity, Rupert Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa (2022); Art Paris, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Paris (2022); Geleceg(n)iDokumak, CerModern Museum, Ankara, Turkey (2022); (IM)MATERIALITY, This Is Not A White Cube, Lisbon, Portugal (2022); A Very Loop Street Summer, Ebony Curated, Cape Town, South Africa (2021); Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, FNB Art Joburg, Open City, Keyes Art Mile, Rosebank, South Africa (2021); Threads, The Duende Art Project, Monastery of the Zwartzusters, Antwerp, Belgium (2021); Presentation with This Is Not a White Cube, Lisbon, Portugal (2021); Facing the Sun, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Schloss Goerne, Germany (2021); Knotted Ties, Lobby Gallery, Christie’s New York, USA (2021); In (the) Loop, Ebony Curated, Cape Town, South Africa (2021); Devil’s in The Details, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2020); Feminist Utopia, curated by Anelisa Mangcu, Ebony Curated, Cape Town, South Africa (2020); Angel, St Antoine Church, in association with Muse Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey (2019); Botanica II, curated by Adele van Heerden for Art B Gallery, Bellville, South Africa (2019); Textile, curated By Amy Pike For Dyman Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa (2019); Filling in the Gaps, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2019).
Highlights and collections
Kimathi Mafafo was finalist for the Ares Art Prize (2022) and the recipient of the Norval Foundation Sovereign Art Prize (2022). Kimathi Mafafo's work can be found in various international collections which include The Newark Museum of Art, USA; The Bunker Artspace Collection, Palm Beach, Florida, USA; Kilbourn Collection, Cape Town, South Africa; William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberly South Africa; Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa; Africa First Collection, Israel; IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; The Art Bank of South Africa, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein, South Africa; The Irma Stern Museum, The University of Cape Town; Foundation H Museum, Antananarivo, Madagascar; Jiminez / Constantine Trust, Puerto Rico; Euston Capital Collection, USA; The House of KOKO, London, UK; Spiers Arts Trust, South Africa; Nelson Mandela Art Museum in Gqeberha (FKA Port Elizabeth); Rupert Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa; OLYM Collection, Belgium, France; The Levett Collection, Europe.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Kimathi MafafoUntitled, 2024
Camilla Emson
About the artist
b. 1985, United Kingdom
Camilla Emson (b. 1985) is an interdisciplinary artist whose psychobiological work positions the female body as a precarious vessel to explore themes of motherhood, objectification and transformation. Working primarily with pliable fibre, liquid media, and molten glass, her sensorially engaging practice tests the limits of containment in physical and psychological ways, whilst also exploring how our bodies are porous containers for our pasts, emotions and traumas. Across her disciplines, she is concerned with notions of reciprocity held within our sense of interiority and exteriority, or depth and surface. She uses her breath in glassblowing and spills ink and bleach onto recycled fabric to create biomorphic forms, twisting molten glass or looping clusters of thread to create skin-like membranes. In her semi-abstract textile works the leakages, fallen threads, and knots are cast in luminous oil paint that fix the fluid mess within an amorphous system, through shapes which resemble ancient alchemical apparatus. Her processes of making enact a shapeshifting in order to unlock and reimagine or rediscover the female body. Her work is autobiographical and also carries traces of her somatic therapeutic work and research, which runs alongside her studio practice.
Since completing an MA in fine art at City and Guilds, London, Emson has engaged in further postgraduate studies in Dance Movement Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, Dream Analysis and Family Constellations training at institutions including Goldsmiths University and the Institute of Dream Studies at CCPE. Her solo exhibitions include Fibrosis, curated by Cyril Moumen, New York; and Gateways, The Crate Gallery, London. Her work has also been included in a wide range of group exhibitions, including shows at the Freud Museum, London; Yorkshire Sculpture Park; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Leila Heller Gallery, New York; Gallery Nosco, Rio de Janeiro; and Fundación Rozenblum, Argentina. She has worked with acclaimed curators such as Anna Souter, Roya Sachs and Alteria Art and completed notable residencies at Xenia Creative Retreat (UK); Beekeepers (Portugal); Fundación Rozenblum (Argentina); and Arteles (Finland). Emson lives and works in Somerset, UK, and Mallorca, Spain.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Camilla EmsonThe Dawn Beneath My Skin, 2024
Camilla EmsonKissing Vessels, 2024
Emma Talbot
Born in Stourbridge, UK, in 1969, Emma Talbot lives and works in London. She was awarded the 8th Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2020 and, following a six-month Italian residency, created the exhibition The Age/l’Età, held at Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2022) and Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2022–2023). Further recent solo institutional exhibitions include Visions, Miucciaccia Gallery, Rome (2024);
Model, Sligo, Ireland (September 2023); KINDL Kesselhaus Berlin, Germany (September 2023); Kunsthalle Giessen, Germany (December 2023); 21st Century Herbal, Beiqui Museum, Nanjing, China (2023); The Human Experience, Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2023); Ghost Calls, DCA Dundee, UK (2021); Ghost Calls and Meditations, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel, Switzerland (2021). Recent projects include 21st Century Herbal, a special project for Frieze London, UK (2022); Four Visions for a Hopeful Future, CIRCA Project, Piccadilly Circus, UK (2021).
The artist has been included in recent major group exhibitions including Between Knowing and Understanding, STUK Arts Center, Belgium; Dawn of Humanity, Art in societies in transition in the early 20th and 21st centuries (2023-2024), touring exhibition including Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; Poly, KINDL Berlin, Germany; Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands; ARoS, Aarhus, Denmark; Irreplaceable Human? The Conditions of Creativity in the Age of AI, Louisiana Museum, Denmark (2023); The Milk of Dreams, La Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2022); Fantasmagoriana, LIAF Biennale, Norway (2022); Fundamental Occurrences, Nosbaum Reding, Brussels, Belgium (2022); The Great Invocation, Garage, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2021); Not Without my Ghosts (2020–22) Hayward Touring, including Grundy Gallery Blackpool, Millennium Galleries Sheffield, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Swansea, UK.
Current and forthcoming solo institutional exhibitions include Talking to Nature, Hundertwasser Kunsthaus, Vienna (2024); Forthcoming group exhibitions include Drawing the Unspeakable, Towner Eastbourne, UK (2024); Positions, ABN AMRO Art Space, Amsterdam.
Works by the artist are included in collections including Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; Fries Museum, Netherlands; Arnhem Museum, Netherlands; KRC Collection, Netherlands; Arts Council Collection, UK; British Council Collection, UK; Kunstsammlung NRW Düsseldorf, Germany; Collezione Maramotti Italy.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Emma TalbotTangled Being, 2024
Anne von Freyburg
About the artist
b. 1979, Lives and works in London, UK
Anne von Freyburg (b. 1979) is a Dutch artist based in London. She received her MFA from Goldsmiths (2016) and holds a BA in Fashion Design from ArtEZ Arnhem, The Netherlands. Von Freyburg is the winner of Robert Walters UK New Artists Award (2021) and exhibited several times at Saatchi Gallery, London. She was nominated for The Ingram Prize (2021). Her work was part of the Tapestry Triennial at the Central Textile Museum in Lodz, Poland (2022-2023) one of the most prominent international Textile Museums worldwide. Von Freyburg’s work is in several private collections all over the world.
In her artistic practice, Anne von Freyburg actively engages in the ongoing discourse surrounding femininity and the construction of female identity. Departing from historical norms that sidelined traditionally feminine materials, her work serves as a reclamation of the value of textiles and embroidery in fine art. The Rococo aesthetic provides a rich palette, allowing her to both engage with and distort modern ideals through quilting techniques that simulate cosmetic procedures.
Her choice of materials is purposeful, each carrying its own historical and social connotations. By blending high and low art, she repurposes elements like 70s tapestry wall-hangings, fusing them with contemporary materials like BDSM lacquer faux leather. This intentional mix challenges stereotypes and norms while providing a commentary on the impact of fast fashion. It's not just a conceptual statement on craft and femininity but also a celebration of the inherent artistic possibilities across all materials.
A notable aspect of her approach involves disrupting the traditional hierarchy between craft and fine art. By concealing her own paintings with fabrics, she challenges the prevailing notion that painting holds the highest artistic value. The under-painting serves as a guide for fabric placement, with Rococo masterpieces repurposed into fashion fabrics as a nod to the traditional medium.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Anne von FreyburgUntitled (after Fragonard), 2021
Basil Kincaid
About the artist
b. 1986, USA
Basil Kincaid (b. 1986, St. Louis, Missouri) is an American artist who honors and evolves traditional practices through quilting, collaging, photography, installation and performance. Implementing materials vested with emotional and memorial content, Kincaid allows these mediums to function as spiritual technology that forward various wisdoms born from Kincaid's greatest values: family, imagination, rest, and experience.
Kincaid studied drawing and painting at Colorado College, graduating in 2010. Kincaid has exhibited works with Hauser & Wirth, Mindy Solomon, Kravets Wehby, Kavi Gupta, Carl Kostyal, and others. In 2019, Kincaid debuted a first museum performance, “The Release,” at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, MO. In 2020 Kincaid received the Regional Arts Commission Fellowship. In 2021, Kincaid became a United States Artist Fellow and joined the Collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2022, Kincaid debuted new quilt works in both the Legacy Russell-curated show, “The New Bend” at Hauser & Wirth’s New York and Los Angeles locations, and the Ekow Eshun-curated exhibition, “New African Portraiture” at the Kunsthalle Krems in Austria. Kincaid also produced a ceremonial installation at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, wrapping a Manuel Neri figure in a quilt entitled “Take Me Home” just days after Neri’s passing. In 2023, Kincaid exhibited “Dancing the Wind Walk”, a semi-permanent fabric monument during Frieze LA, with support from the Art Production Fund. Kincaid currently has a solo exhibition at the Rubell Museum in Miami, FL on view now through October 2024, and an upcoming solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, MO opening September 2024.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Basil KincaidThe Sea of Me: Tide against my eyes, 2024
Basil KincaidThe Way Water Is, 2023
Sara Berman
About the artist
b. 1975, United Kingdom
Working with the trope of the Harlequin as Trickster Whore, Berman examines the societal constructs of the female experience. She radicalises the historically female domain of portraiture. In painting herself, Berman refutes the male gaze and objectification of women. The figures are often defiant and Berman’s gentle muted aesthetic is fraught with contrapuntal layers, the canvas appears almost bruised; the visceral and corporeal juxtaposed with a delicacy and fluidity of line and movement. Berman’s work uses its very appeal to defy expectation: a violent transgression within beauty.
Sara Berman (b. 1975, UK) lives and works in London, She studied fashion BA at Central Saint Martins in the 1990’s and worked in fashion before studying for her MFA at Slade UCL graduating in 2016.
Represented by Vielmetter Los Angeles.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Sara BermanLow Hanging Fruit, 2020
Sara BermanAviatrix 2, 2024
Alice Kettle
About the artist
b. 1961, United Kingdom
Alice Kettle monumental figurative stitched works, describe the challenges and ambitions of the human condition by colliding the autobiographical and contemporary events with folklore and mythology. Her artistic work is represented in various international public collections including the V&A Museum, Crafts Council London, the Whitworth in Manchester, Museo Internationale delle Arti Applicate Oggi, Turin, Italy, Museum of Decorative Art and Design, Riga, Latvia. Her major exhibition Thread Bearing Witness (2018) at the Whitworth Art Gallery and the key show with the British Textile Biennial (2019) used stitch to address issues of migration and people displacement. She co-curated Fabric; Cloth and Identity at Compton Verney Art Gallery (2019), Threads- Breathing Stories into Materials at the Arnolfini in Bristol (2023). She received the Brookfield Properties/Crafts Council award with accompanying exhibition To Boldy Sew (2023). She is Professor of Textile Arts at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University and leads the Design and Craft Research Group. She has an enduring interest in collaborative work and empowering marginalized communities through creative means. She has co-authored various publications including Collaboration through Craft, The Erotic Cloth with Bloomsbury.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Alice KettleLightness of Blue, 2024
Alice KettleGrey Turning To Yellow, 2024
Anya Paintsil
About the artist
Welsh Ghanian b. 1993
Online
Social
Anya Paintsil is a Welsh and Ghanaian textile artist who lives and works in London. Drawing inspiration from her childhood in North Wales, and her ancestral, Fante tradition of figurative textiles, Paintsil combines craft practices she was taught as a young child; rug making, appliqué and hand embroidery with afro hairstyling techniques to create large scale portraits. Paintsils’ figures explore the possibilities and politics of non representative depictions of the Black figure.
Often mistaken as subversion of ‘primitivism’, Paintsil deliberately and consciously refuses to root her work in the European Fine Art Canon, Paintsil’s visual language finds its basis in traditional West African crafts and art - carvings, wood sculptures, masks - exchanging the hard materials for soft, in an interrogation of gendered labour, particularly the labour of working class women.
Anya made her debut at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London in 2020, and since then Anya has received sustained interest from private collectors and public institutions. Recent acquisitions include Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The National Museum of Wales, The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester and The Women’s Art Collection at Cambridge University.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Anya PaintsilTop and tails, 2024
Anya PaintsilAmser codi, 2024
Anya PaintsilKebab stiletto torrential rain, 2024
Bea Bonafini
About the artist
b. 1999. Germany
Bea Bonafini graduated from MA painting from the Royal College of Art in London (2016) and BA Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art in London (2014). She was artist-in-residence at the Art Explora Mediterranean Project (2024) and the British School at Rome (2020); commissions include site-specific works for Manifesta 15, Spain (2024); ALA Prize, Italy (2023); Artocène Biennial, France (2023); Palazzo Abatellis, Italy (2022); Meta HQ, UK (2022); La Berlugane-Maleki residence, France; Maison Estelle, UK (2018); and Jonköping Council, Sweden (2018).
Recent solo exhibitions: Luminscence, Renata Fabbri, Milan (2024); Acque Amare, ALA Art Foundation (2023); Il Chiostro Animato, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome (2022); A Monstrous Fruit, Setareh, Berlin (2022); Animals Of Your Lips, Bosse & Baum, London (2022); Unearthly, Nosbaum Reding, Luxembourg (2022); Ghosts for a Post-Modern Tale, LAAA, Mexico City (2022); Luna Piena (Stomaco Vuoto), Renata Fabbri, Milan (2021); Sfiorare Fantasmi, Eduardo Secci, Florence (2021); Twin Waves, Operativa, Rome (2019); Chimère, Chloe Salgado, Paris (2018); Shed Shreds, Lychee One, London (2018); and Dovetail’s Nest, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2017).
Recent group exhibitions: Diario Notturno, MAXXI, L’Aquila (2023); Italian Painting Today, Triennale Milano (2023); Imagina, Biennale di Gubbio (2023); Horizon of the Void, Artocène, Chamonix (2023); Coppa di Stelle nel Cerchio del Sole, Palazzo Abatellis Museum, Palermo (2022); Fondazione per l’Arte, Rome (2022); Kristen Hjellegjerde, London (2022); The Artsy Vanguard Fourth Edition, Miami (2021); Fondazione Sandretto, Guarene (2020); Premio Cairo, Palazzo Reale Milan (2019); and Memories Arrested in Space, The Italian Cultural Institute, London (2018).
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Bea Bonafini4, 2019
Bea BonafiniAlien Vibrations, 2022
Erin Riley
About the artist
b. 1985, United States
Erin M. Riley’s (b. 1985) meticulously crafted, large-scale tapestries depict intimate, erotic, and psychologically raw imagery that reflects upon relationships, memories, fantasies, sexual violence, and trauma. Collaging personal photographs, images sourced from the internet, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera to create her compositions, the Brooklyn-based weaver exposes the range of women’s lived experiences and how trauma weighs on the search for self-identity. In her review of Riley’s most recent solo exhibition with P·P·O·W, The Consensual Reality of Healing Fantasies, Roberta Smith of the New York Times wrote, “Her richly variegated colors and complex, arresting scenes take full advantage of tapestry’s stitch-by-stitch autonomy.”
Riley received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art. Her work has been included in solo and group exhibitions at P·P·O·W, New York; Galerie Julien Cadet, Paris, France; Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway; The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY; Gana Art Gallery, Seoul, South Korea; MassArt Art Museum, Boston, MA; and UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA; among others. Riley is the recipient of a United States Artists Fellowship Grant, 2021 and an American Academy of Arts & Letters Art Purchase Prize, 2021 and has completed residencies at MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire and the Museum of Art and Design, New York. Her work was recently featured in 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT, manifesto of fragility, the 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, and Kingdom of the Ill at Museion, Bolzano, Italy. In late 2024, Riley will present her first solo exhibition with cadet capela, Paris, France.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Erin RileyI Kept My Toes Pink for You, 2023
Erin RileyTraining Wheels, 2024
Carolina Mazzolari
About the artist
b. 1981, Italy
Photo credit: Vicky Polak
Carolina Mazzolari was born in 1981 in Milan, Italy. Mazzolari studied at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano NABA (1999 – 2001) and at London’s Chelsea College of Art and Design now UAL (2000 – 04) and has been based in London since 2014. In her creative practice she employs textile manipulation, printing, painting, photography, video and performance inspired by psychoanalysis, intuition, cognition, human behavior and emotional development. Her ongoing series of contemporary abstract tapestries, Emotional Fields, are the materialization of elusive states of mind, depictions of metaphorical inner landscapes, these were initially inspired by Kurt Lewin’s field theory and Carl Jung’s scripts. Their distinctive herringbone technique using cotton, silk and wool thread on hand-dyed linen fabric interacts with light, creating changing depths and luminous illusions. Her exquisite hand-stitched work is imbued with a sense of intimacy through the physical interaction with the fabrics over many hundreds of hours. Mazzolari’s delicate and meditative works are reminiscent of mandalas in which love, hesitation, loss, grief, and struggle are described in a personal and universal language, connecting to a deeper human pattern.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Carolina MazzolariLine XIV, 2023
Carolina MazzolariMap 21, 2022
Mia Weiner
Mia Weiner received an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois in 2020 and a BFA in Fiber from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2013. She was awarded the V&A Parasol Prize by the Victoria & Albert Museum and Parasol Foundation in 2024. Mia Weiner's weavings beckon the viewer into a realm where mythology intertwines with contemporary discourse on gender and femininity and invites us to question and reimagine the world in which we live. Beginning each weaving by photographing herself alongside friends and partners, these images are then digitally manipulated before being handwoven by the artist.
Solo and two-person exhibitions of Weiner’s work include Connected Bodies at Homecoming Gallery in Amsterdam, Netherlands (2024), Sirens at T293 in Rome, Italy (2023); Foreplay at Ochi Projects in Los Angeles, California (2022); Head(less): Mia Weiner and Adam Beris at Ochi Gallery in Ketchum, Idaho (2021); If not you at Ochi Projects in Los Angeles, California (2020); The Space Between at The Suburban in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2020); Abstract Naked Lunch with Ricardo Partida at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois (2019); and Attached at Gallery 788 in Baltimore, Maryland (2014). Group exhibitions that have shown Weiner’s work include: Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles, CA; Compound, Long Beach, CA; Hollis Taggart in New York, NY; LVL3 in Chicago, IL; Arushi Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; Mollie White Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; Daniel Raphael Gallery in London, UK; CULT Bureau in Oakland, CA; Terrain Biennial in Iowa City, IA; WHATIFTHEWORLD in Cape Town, South Africa; Untitled Art Fair in Miami, CA; and Unseen in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Weiner lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Mia WeinerSirens I, 2024
Cindy Phenix
About the artist
b. 1989, Canada
Cindy Phenix (born 1989 in Montreal, lives and works in Los Angeles) received an MFA in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University in Evanston in 2020 and a BFA with distinction from Concordia University in Montreal in 2016. Phenix’s work has been included in many exhibitions: Nino Mier (Los Angeles, New York and Brussels), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Galerie Hugues Charbonneau (Montreal) and Maison de la culture de Longueuil (Longueuil). The artist attended residencies at ACRE, Banff Centre, and Vermont Studio Center.
Work by the artist is included in collections including Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec, Collection BGL, Caisse de Dépôt du Québec, Claridge, Hydro-Québec, and Gris Orange Consultants. In 2015, Cindy Phenix was listed as one of the top 15 emerging artists for RBC’s prestigious Canadian Painting Competition.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Cindy PhenixAggregate of Sensations, 2023
Christian Holstad
About the artist
b. 1972, United States
United by attitude rather than medium or method, Christian Holstad’s work probes received ideas about class, culture, sexuality and society. A keen eye on concepts of high and low informs a body of work that, encompassing sculpture, installation, performance, photography, collage and textiles, is concerned with the construction and manifestation of social and intimate spaces. Holstad's practice has explored domestic and subcultural sites, often exploring and calling into question preconceived notions of identity and desire. His first show in New York was inspired by the story of David Phillip Vetter, the 'boy in the bubble' whose rare genetic immune disorder resulted in having to spend most of his short life in isolation in a plastic bubble. In contrast to the bedroom scene staged for that show, Holstad's 2006 installation Leather Beach included references to S&M clubs, tanning salons, and high-end boutiques.
An interest in the culture of consumerism and the particularities of the contemporary recessionary moment are explored in an ongoing series of soft sculptures works that reference shopping carts. More recently Holstad has examined devotional texts (The Book of Hours, 2013), the various types of borders, boundaries and constraints in our environment that impact our lives, from the political and governmental to the societal and personal (Corrections, 2014) and the visual and emotional encoding and decoding of the domestic sphere versus the external environment. (Toothpick, 2016, at Massimo De Carlo, Milan).
In his ongoing series of Eraserhead drawings the artist selectively erases sections of images cut from newspapers and magazines, transforming their meanings in ways that hint at hidden or subtextual layers beneath the surface of received, media-sanctioned culture. Between 2020-2022, Holstad worked with Sissi Daniella Oliveri on The Pasta Workshops at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna resulting in a publication of the same title.
Christian Holstad was born in Anaheim, California in 1972 and lives and works between New York City and Romagna, Italy. Recent solo exhibitions include Museo Civico Luigi Varoli, Cotignola, Ravenna (2024); Massimo de Carlo Pièce Unique, Paris (2023); Slow Fish, Genova (2021); Ca' Foscari University, Venice (2019); Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2017 and 2013) and Galleria national d'arte moderna, Rome (2009). The artist presented the multi-disciplinary performance work red, yellow, lime, pink, lavender, green, scarlet, lavender, scarlet, green, lavender as part of The Magazine Sessions 2016 at the Serpentine Galleries, London, and has participated in group exhibitions including The Flames: The Age of Ceramics, Musee d’art Moderne, Paris (2021); Transitions and Transformations,? NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale (2019-21); Harald Szeemann - Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us, Swiss Institute, New York (2019); A Cool Breeze, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2019); Chromaphilia & Chromaphobia, Kansas City Art Institute (2016); From The Ruins..., 601Artspace, New York (2015); Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art, Hangzhou, China (2013); Paper, Saatchi Gallery, London (2013); Aquatopia, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, touring to Tate St Ives (2013); Graphite, Indianapolis Museum of Art (2013); The Air We Breathe, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2011); Coming After, The Power Plant, Toronto (2011); Compilation IV, Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf (2009); Compass in Hand: Selections from the Judith Rothschild Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009); Unmonumental (Inaugural Exhibition), New Museum, New York (2017) and Uncertain States of America, Serpentine Gallery, London (2006). Holstad participated in the Lyon Biennial in 2007 and the Whitney Biennial in New York in 2004. His work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Christian HolstadInhale, exhale. (with Peter Dean & Frank Lincoln Viner), 2021
Hangama Amiri
About the artist
b. 1989, Afghanistan
Hangama Amiri(b. 1989, Peshawar, Afghanistan) works predominantly in textile to create images that reflect on ideas of home. Using a painterly approach to colour and materials, Amiri reflects on how everyday objects are imbued with cultural memory. Amiri holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was a Canadian Fulbright and Post-Graduate Fellow at Yale University School of Art and Sciences, and has completed residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, Joya AiR Residency Program in Almeri?a, Spain, World of CO Residency program in Sofia, Bulgaria, and at Long Road Projects in Jacksonville, Florida. Amiri won the 2011 Lieutenant Governor’s Community Volunteerism Award and the 2013 Portia White Protege Award.
She has exhibited internationally at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield; Hayy Jameel, Jeddah; Aga Khan Museum, Cooper Cole, Toronto; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; The Moody Centre for the Arts, Houston; Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; Carl Kostya?l, Hospitalet, Stockholm; Mo?nchehaus Museum; Goslar; Sharjah Biennial 15, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; Sevil Dolmaci Gallery, Istanbul; Kunstraum Potsdam, Potsdam; Fondazione Imago Mundi, Treviso; Villa Panza, Varese; T293 Gallery, Rome; New Museum, Albertz Benda, Charles Moffett Gallery, New York; Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, Banff; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; and Paramo Gallery, Guadalajara; among others. Amiri lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Hangama AmiriWounded Deer, 2021
Sarah Zapata
About the artist
b. 1988, USA
Sarah Zapata (b. 1988, Corpus Christi, TX) is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She has held solo exhibitions with the Arizona State University Art Museum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Performance Space New York, el Museo del Barrio, amongst others. Her work has been exhibited at the Barbican Centre, Leslie-Lohman Museum,Kasmin Gallery, Lisson Gallery, amongst many others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum, Museo de Arte de Lima, the Museum of Arts and Design, amongst others. Zapata has also completed residencies at the Museum of Arts and Design, Wave Hill, the International Studio and Curatorial Program, amongst others. She has been the recipient of grants from the Harpo Foundation, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, amongst others. Zapata was the 2023 National Resident for CALA Alliance, and currently teaches in the graduate painting program at the Yale School of Art.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Sarah ZapataTowards an ominous time II, 2022
Jorge Eielson
About the artist
b. 1924, Peru, d. 2006, Italy
Jorge Eielson (b. 1924, Lima, Peru, d. 2006, Milan, Italy) was a Peruvian painter and writer whose work straddled multiple genres, from Modernist abstraction to Arte Povera and conceptualism, over his six-decade-long career. He rose to prominence as part of the Peruvian movement known as “Generation 1950” before relocating to Europe, first to Paris in 1948 and then to Rome in 1951. He participated in four Venice Biennales over his lifetime (1964, 1966, 1972, and 1988), and in 1972 he was included in Documenta 5, Kassel. Eielson published the collection of poems Habitación en Roma (Room in Rome, 1952) and two novels, El cuerpo de Giulia-No (The Heart of Julia-No, 1971) and Primera muerte de María (Mary’s First Death, 1988). In 1978, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for literature. Eielson was an active member of avant-garde communities in his native Peru and in Paris, Rome, and New York. In 1969, he submitted a proposal to NASA to mount one of his sculptures on the moon, a proposal that was enthusiastically received but never realized. A major retrospective of Eielson’s work was presented in 2017 at the Museo de Arte de Lima in Peru. His work resides in such collections as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museo de Arte de Lima; Rockefeller Collection, New York; and Blanton Museum of Art, Texas; and Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, among others.
Photo credit: Maria Mulas
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Jorge EielsonBandiere, 1999
Allison Reimus
About the artist
b. 1982, United States
Allison Reimus (b. 1982) is a Michigan-born, New York-based artist. She earned her BFA from Michigan State University in 2005 and her MFA from American University in 2009. Reimus’ practice explores her relationship with motherhood, femininity and domesticity through abstraction. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Real Abstraction, RA Gallery, Great Barrington, MA (2023), Surly Cues, Left Field Gallery at Barely Fair, Chicago, IL (2023) and Hum, Jennifer Terzian Gallery, Litchfield, CT (2023). In 2022, Reimus’ work was showcased in the group exhibition Sign Systems, at Unit London, UK, followed by Worlds Beyond in 2023.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Allison ReimusDear Prudence, 2021
Allison ReimusBirthing Hips, 2024
Eduardo Terrazas
About the artist
b. 1936, Mexico
Eduardo Terrazas (b. 1936, Guadalajara, Mexico) is a Mexican artist and architect who is celebrated for his substantial contributions to the fields of art, architecture, design, museology, and urban planning in his native country. Trained as an architect, Terrazas has over his five-decade career combined modernist geometric abstraction with Mexican folk techniques in works whose aesthetic has come to define contemporary Mexican art. Terrazas first gained international acclaim for his logo and promotional materials for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, which he co-designed with Lance Wyman. The motif, based on a Huichol textile, was heralded for foregrounding Mexican traditional folk design and infusing it with a modern graphic sensibility. In the 1970s, he began a series of investigations into geometric forms that would serve as a through line within his artistic career. These investigations, combined with the appropriation of techniques from Mexican folk art, have resulted in a unique language that navigates both contemporary art and craft traditions. Terrazas has held positions as a lecturer in Architectural Design at Columbia University, New York from 1964 to 1965; the University of California, Berkeley from 1969 to 1970; and Cidoc, Cuernavaca in 1971. In 2013, he was invited to contribute his Tablas series, which employs a Huichol yarn-painting technique, to the Sharjah Biennial. The Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Mexico honored the artist with a retrospective exhibition in 2023 which spanned his practice from painting to urban-scale projects. The following year, his work was featured in Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th edition of The International Art Exhibition, curated by Adriano Pedrosa and organised by La Biennale di Venezia.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Eduardo TerrazasPossibilities of a Structure: Cosmos 1.1.426, 2021
Eduardo TerrazasPossibilities of a Structure: Cosmos 1.1.303, 2018
Eduardo TerrazasPossibilities of a Structure: Cosmos 1.1.300, 2018
Emily Moore
About the artist
b. 1983, United Kingdom
Emily Moore (b. London) is a visual artist based in London she graduated from a MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2020. Moore has defined her own term ‘wildness’ in contemporary painting, which she says speaks both to her approach within her practice but also suggests the state of contemporary painting through the lens of art history and its current context within the immediate conversations surrounding painting. This explorative sense of wildness can be seen in her studio as she has no qualms about working through several different ideas or pieces of work at the same time. Sometimes this takes form through brush and paint to canvas; other times it is through yarn and weaving, or installation, play and performance. All is rooted in the notion of exploration. One thing that is guaranteed is that there is no set pattern of actions in my studio. Everything is intuitive and bucks the system of the previous moves, or the surrounding current body of work. This can be physically felt and visually seen when you enter my studio through the vast array of materials and mediums that Moore explores in her practice. For the studio often holds the idea of potential without a clear and fixed articulation of it. There is an idea and a residue of process that gives form to the possibility of an object, place or structure.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Emily MooreMaroon, 2022
Secundino Hernandez
About the artist
b. 1975, Spain
Secundino Hernández was born in 1975 in Madrid, where he currently lives and works. Solo institutional exhibitions of his work have been held at venues including Miettinen Collection, Berlin, Germany (2022); Insular Museum, Cabildo of La Palma, Spain (2021–2022); CAC Málaga, Spain (2018); Taidehalli Helsinki, Finland (2018); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2015); Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France (2014).
The artist has also participated in institutional group exhibitions including Entre los ojos el deseo, Olivia Arauna Collection, Alcobendas Art Center, Madrid, Spain (2024); Extraordinary Form, Miettinen Collection, 2000s-Present, Salon Dahlmann, Berlin, Germany (2024); The lens within your heart, Takeuchi Collection, What Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2023); Pintura. Una renovación permanente, Patio Herreriano Museum, Valladolid, Spain (2021); The Art Show, Art of the New Millennium, Taguchi Art Collection, Japan (2017); Summer Exhibition 2017, Royal Academy, London, UK (2017); Abstract Painting Now, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria (2017); Alone Together, Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, USA (2013); Berlin Status 1, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2012); and Berlin Klondyke 2011, Art Center Los Angeles, USA (2011).
His work is in numerous institutional and private collections, including Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand; Montenmedio Contemporánea Foundation, Cádiz, Spain; Friedrichs Collection, Bonn, Germany; Jorge Pérez Collection, Miami, USA; Masaveu Foundation, Madrid, Spain; Foundation 20/21 Collection, La Palma, Spain; Meadows Museum, Dallas, Texas, USA; Helga de Alvear Foundation, Cáceres, Spain; Kunstdepot Göschenen, Switzerland; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, UK; North Carolina Museum, USA; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA; Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Zabludowicz Collection, Sarvisalo, Finland.
Portrait of Secundino Hernández: Courtesy the artist, Image: Rafael Trapiello
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Secundino HernandezLe Journee, 2024
Secundino HernandezNegu Gorriak, 2024
Secundino HernandezThe Flag, 2024
Secundino HernandezI'll Scry Instead (Figure in a mirror), 2024
Secundino HernandezToulouse-Lautrec, 2024
Maria Nepomuceno
About the artist
b. 1976, Brazil
Using traditional methods of rope weaving and straw braiding as well as techniques of her own design Maria Nepomuceno has, since the early 2000s, developed a process of sewing coils of coloured rope in spirals. She explores the potentially endless permutations of this adaptable form in sculptures and installations that incorporate beads, playful ceramic forms and found objects of varying sizes. Often realised in carnival-bright colours, these works are chromatically, culturally and metaphorically rich, suggesting animals, plants, the human body and landscapes ranging from the microscopic to the macrocosmic.
Nepomuceno's fluid forms articulate space in a playful way, sometimes inviting tactile exploration. The notion of the rope as a connecting thread is as conceptual as it is literal in Nepomuceno's practice. In recent years collaboration has become a more overt factor in her work. She has worked with indigenous Huni Kuin people in the state of Acre in the north of Brazil to develop weaving techniques and has also formed links with community groups to realise projects for her exhibitions. For instance, elements of Nepomuceno’s installation Tempo para Respirar (Breathing Time), 2012 – 2013, at Turner Contemporary, Margate, were made in collaboration with a local artist studio group brought together by the artist specifically to learn her techniques and work on the commission. This spirit of cooperation and openness has extended to the display of several of her large-scale installations, where visitors are invited to interact directly with elements of her work.
Maria Nepomuceno was born in 1976 in Rio de Janeiro, where she continues to live and work. Recent exhibitions include the solo presentations Expiro, Victoria Miro, Venice (2024); Nasci de uma flor at Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2024); Big Bang Boca, Instituto Artium de Cultura, São Paulo, Brazil (2023); Maria Nepomuceno: Dentro e Fora Infinitamente, SCAD Museum of Modern Art, Georgia, USA (2022); Maria Nepomuceno: Refloresta!, The Portico Library in Manchester (2021). Selected group exhibitions include, Acts of Gathering, Eden Projects, Cornwall, UK; Narrative Threads: Fiber Art Today, Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, USA (2023); Forest: Wake This Ground at Arnolfini, Bristol (2022); and My Body, My Rules, Pérez Art Museum, Miami Florida, USA (2020).
The artist’s work has previously been exhibited at institutions such as Stavanger Art Museum; Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro; Barbican Center, London, UK; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa; Auckland Art Gallery, USA; Daejeon Museum of Art, South Korea; Hudson Valley Center of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York, USA and MFA, Boston, USA among others.
Works by the artist are included in the collections of Museu de Arte da Bahia; MFA Boston, USA; Guggenheim Museum, USA; Pérez Art Museum Miami, USA; Rubell Museum, USA, among others.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Maria NepomucenoUntitled, 2016
Maria NepomucenoUntitled, 2016
Delphine Denereaz
About the artist
b. 1989, France
Delphine Dénéréaz (b. 1989, France) lives and works in Villedieu in Vaucluse. For almost ten years, Delphine Dénéréaz has imagined installations that she produces using a traditional technique from the vernacular culture of the Middle Ages, the “lirette carpet”/“Rag Rug”. At the same time, she is developing a sculptural practice of large-scale grid weaving that nourishes immersive environments in which the history of art or ancestral cultures jubilantly intersect with the signs and artifacts produced by contemporary society.
Since 2019, she has completed numerous residencies in France and abroad. The works of Delphine Dénéréaz have been presented at the Villa Noailles (Hyères, Toulon), at the Friche Belle de Mai, at the Traverse and at the Marsatac festival (Marseille), at the Consulate (Paris), at the Galerie Slika in Lyon, at the Fenaa Al Awwal cultural center in Saudi Arabia.
Delphine Dénéréaz participated in a personal exhibition at the Collection Lambert at the end of 2023, in 2024 she participated in the 1st triennial of contemporary art in Nîmes, and produced a work for Vent des Forêts (Meuse). This summer she was in residence at the Halle (Pont en Royans) to prepare her next solo which will take place in January 2025.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Delphine DenereazKharakter, 2018
Delphine Denereazune autre vue d’Automne, 2022
Tina Williams Brewer
About the artist
b. 1949, USA
Tina Williams Brewer was born in 1949 in Huntington, West Virginia and currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Columbus College of Art and Design with a Bachelor of Arts and has been creating art for more than forty years. Known for her story quilts, Williams Brewer uses symbolism, textile, and fabrics to explore African-American history, generational healing, and the spirituality of her culture. Tina Williams Brewer’s work has been widely displayed both locally and internationally including exhibitions at the United States Embassy in Ghana and the American Craft Museum in New York City. Her work has been recognized by the American Arts in Embassy Program for more than twenty years, and she is the recipient of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Governor’s Awards for the Arts. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, and The African American Museum of Dallas. This past year, her work was featured in Three Artists (Three Women), a spotlight exhibition of women artists at the University Art Gallery in Pittsburgh.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Tina Williams BrewerOar Up or Down Series: Transcending Travelers, 2021
Tiffanie Delune
About the artist
b. 1988, France
Tiffanie Delune (b. 1988, France. Lives and works in Montpellier, France)
Expanding from an initial focus on personal trauma and childhood experiences, Delune is interested in the magic of storytelling that engages conversations and evokes emotions. Previous solo presentations include ‘There is Gold on the Palms of my Hands’ Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana (2023); ‘See Me Flowing’, Band of Vices, Los Angeles, USA (2022); ‘There’s Gasoline in My Heart’, Foreign Agent, Lausanne, Switzerland (2022); ‘Seeds of Light’, Ed Cross Fine Art, London, UK (2020) and ‘Metamorphosis’, Someth1ng Gallery, London, UK (2019). Group exhibitions include, ‘The Fabric Of Life’, Vortic Art x Paul Smith, London, UK (Forthcoming, 2024); ‘A Spirit Inside’, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK (2024); ‘Touching The Sky’, Mucciaccia Contemporary, Rome, Italy (2023); ‘A Spirit Inside’, The Lightbox, Woking, Surrey, UK (2023); ‘In and Out of Time’, Curated by Ekow Eshun, Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana (2023); ‘UNLIMITED’, Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana (2022); ‘The Storytellers’, Gallery 1957, London, UK (2022); ‘Mother Nature’, The Core Club, New York (2022); ‘Her Dark Materials’, Online with Eye Of The Huntress, London, (2021); ‘In The Beginning’, Online with Ed Cross Fine Art, London (2021); ‘Shape of the New’, Online with ArtCan, London (2021) and ‘In The Midst of All That Is’, Band of Vice, Los Angeles (2021).
In 2022, Delune was nominated for the 2023 Norval Sovereign African Art Prize. Between January and March 2023, the artist was in residency with Gallery 1957, Accra. In 2021, Delune was nominated for the Reiffers Art Initiative Prize in Paris, France and in 2018, she completed a residency with 16/16 in Lagos, Nigeria. Delune has been featured on Forbes, BBC Radio London, The Financial Times, The Evening Standard, Cultured Magazine, Artillery Magazine and Artsy. Her work is held in various private collections and the permanent collections of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art in Geneva, Switzerland as well as the Alexandra Cohen Presbyterian Hospital for Women and Newborns in New York and The Women’s Art Collection of the Murray Edwards College at Cambridge University, UK.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Tiffanie DeluneStillness And Swing, 2024
Ferren Gipson
Ferren Gipson is an art historian and artist researching modern art and exploring themes of politics, popular culture, and identity across her work. She is the acclaimed author of Women’s Work and The Ultimate Art Museum, and as a dynamic storyteller, has contributed to the Financial Times and WePresent. Having previously taught for the Courtauld Institute and SOAS, as well as delivering guest lectures for institutions like the Royal Academy of Art, her commitment to art education shines. Within her textile practice, Ferren explores themes of spirituality, materiality, and matrilineal ties. She has previously exhibited with Hauser & Wirth and Unit London.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Ferren GipsonHotter Than Fish Grease, 2024
Andreas Eriksson
About the artist
b. 1975, Sweden
Hovering between abstraction and figuration, Andreas Eriksson’s meditative works can be interpreted as patchwork topographies or details of organic forms such as trees, earth and rock formations. Andreas Eriksson was born in 1975 in Björsäter, Sweden. He lives and works in Lidköping, Sweden.
Eriksson’s artistic practice encompasses a wide range of media including painting, photography, sculpture, tapestry and installation. Rendered in earthy and botanical hues, his works are understated yet possess a poetic quality which has a lasting effect on the viewer.
The emotional intensity of Eriksson’s work is the result of a sustained exploration of his response to the natural world. Since 2000 the artist has lived in a house situated in a forest on the edge of a lake. Small events and phenomena from his everyday life and the surrounding landscape give his formal and conceptual decision-making process a firm context.
A major solo exhibiton of Eriksson’s work opened at Lillehammer Kunstmuseum in 2024, accompanied by a catalogue. A significant monograph on the artist’s practice was also released by Sveriges Allmänna Konstförening in December 2021, alongside an exhibition at Galleri Flach, Stockholm. Eriksson had a major solo presentation at Skissernas Museum, Lund in June 2021 and an exhibition of watercolours, drawings and tapestries at Nordic Watercolour Museum, Tjörn in September 2020. Eriksson was commissioned to create a public painting for the main entrance of New Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm in 2017. His work was exhibited at the 30th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo (2012) and The Nordic Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.
Other notable solo exhibitions include: ‘Roots’, Vänermuseet and Lidköping Kunsthall, Lidköping, Sweden (2023); ‘Andreas Eriksson’, Artspace de 11 Linjen Griet Dupont Foundation, Oudenburg, Belgium (2021); ‘Cutouts, Mistakes and Threads’, Braunsfelder Family Collection, Cologne, Germany (2019); ‘Work in Progress’, Skissernas Museum, Lund, Sweden (2017); ‘Roundabouts’, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden which toured to Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim, Norway; Centre PasquArt, Biel, Switzerland and Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland (2014–2015). ‘Roundabout the hardship of believing’ and ‘Walking the Dog, Lying on the Sofa,’ MUMOK, Vienna, Austria (2008).
Eriksson’s works are included in prominent collections internationally including Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; FRAC, Auvergne, France; MUMOK, Vienna, Austria; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, Norway; Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenberg, Sweden; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Skövde Art Museum, Skövde, Sweden; National Public Art Council, Sweden; Sundsvall Museum, Sundsvall, Sweden; Uppsala Art Museum, Uppsala, Sweden; British Museum, London, England and X Museum, Beijing, China.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Andreas Eriksson Sote , 2015
Andreas ErikssonGitter 1 , 2015-2016
Paul Smith
About the artist
Paul Smith is Britain’s leading independent design company.
Paul Smith champions positivity, curiosity and creativity. These qualities underpin every Paul Smith design, whether it’s a shirt, a shop or a special collaboration. Paul Smith is a British company with a global outlook. What began in a small, 3 x 3 meter shop in Nottingham, England in 1970 has grown to 130 shops and counting around the world, with locations in over 60 countries.
Works presented in Fabric of Life...
Paul SmithA pair of Marzio Cecchi Model S Chair, Italy, 1970s
Paul SmithSpectra Rug Co Rug, 
Paul SmithA pair of Mid Century chairs in Paul Smith mahram houndstooth, 
Paul SmithItalian Burr Coffee table, 1970s
Paul SmithSlate top side table, 
Paul SmithSquare dining table with chunky solid pine legs reminiscent of Brazilian modernism, 
Paul SmithRound stone and turned timber dining table, 
Paul SmithA pair of Mid Century armchairs by Tatra, former Czechoslovakia, 1960s
Paul SmithOval stone and turned timber dining table, 
Paul SmithA pair of Brutalist steel base chairs in the manner of Paul Evans, 1960-70s
An iconic and unique design by Marzio Cecchi for Studio Most in Italy, circa early 1970s. Made of wicker rope, the graceful and sculptural “S” form is supported by a circular base. By Marzio Cecchi, (1940-1990) Born near Florence on March 1st 1940, Marzio Cecchi comes from a design environment, his mother being Giulia Carla Cecchi, a name famous in the world of fashion with her haute couture creations paraded at Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Italy. Marzio Cecchi was a famous architect from Firenze who totally designed his projects. He graduated as an Architect from the University of Florence. Marzio Cecchi was an eclectic and visionary Architect, Designer and Artist. He died in an accident in New York on January 1st 1990, leaving timeless designs and one of a kind pieces highly collectible on the market
A pair of 1960’s armchairs designed by Tatra. Tatra’s designs are characterized by simple geometric shapes and bright colours, typical of the art and design movement known as "functionalism", which advocated a rational, utilitarian aesthetic. Their furniture was also known for its high quality craftsmanship, using materials such as beech, walnut and rosewood. These timeless chairs have bee upholstered in Paul Smith Maharam’s new pattern released this summer – Stepped Plaid, Lake.
Please note that dimensions include hanging threads
Main panel dimensions: 58 x 58 cm
Signed, titled and dated 'J. Eielson, Bandiere-99' (on the reverse)
Please note that dimensions include hanging threads
Main panel dimensions: 48 x 58 cm
Spectra offers a subtle alternative to the Signature Stripe, capturing the evolution of this iconic motif. Rectangular blocks house spectrums of colourful silk that appear elevated against a sumptuous Tibetan wool base.
The champion of eclectic British fashion, Paul Smith, describes his unique and much-coveted style as ‘classic with a twist’. His creations are infused with a sense of humour which is beautifully married with a love of tradition; his unmistakable Englishness is augmented by the unexpected and the eccentric. One of the first fashion designers to collaborate with The Rug Company, Paul’s confident, bright rug designs can transform a room and many have become undoubted icons of design.
Price on application. This item is made to order to a bespoke size.
Please note that dimensions include hanging threads
Main panel dimensions: 58 x 50 cm