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    Elodie Blanchard Revitalizes Fabric Scraps into Vivid Patchworks of Trees, Bouquets, and Goddesses

    “Goddesses 11, 8, 9, 10.” Image © Randy Duchaine. All images courtesy of Elodie Blanchard, shared with permission

    Elodie Blanchard Revitalizes Fabric Scraps into Vivid Patchworks of Trees, Bouquets, and Goddesses

    June 30, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    The garments we wear often hold stories about our lives. A hole in the knee of a well-loved pair of jeans recalls hours spent bent down to tend to a vegetable garden, while a greasy oil stain condemns a T-shirt once worn to a family barbeque.

    For Elodie Blanchard, textiles hold boundless narrative potential. Working with fabrics gathered from friends, stoops around her Brooklyn neighborhood, and secondhand shops, the French-American artist and designer stitches patchwork sculptures that transform materials otherwise destined for the landfill into vibrant forms. When searching for something more specific—say, Lycra, leather, or fur—the artist taps her friends in the industry and organizations like Materials for the Arts and FabScrap.

    “Forest.” Image © Randy Duchaine

    The resulting pieces take many shapes. There are Blanchard’s spindly trees that layer stripes of fabrics upward, creating visible rings encircling the trunk. Stretch is essential in these arboreal constructions, and the artist shares that she tends to alternate the amount of give a material has, allowing for small bulges and curves that resemble organic life.

    For her sprawling bouquet series, Blanchard finds inspiration from Green-Wood Cemetery near her home. She scours the trash cans for polyester scraps, tattered flags, and other materials that once honored the dead. “Remembrance Happy Birthday,” for example, came to fruition after the artist found a balloon bearing those words.

    Whether creating a figurative goddess or a three-dimensional vessel, the material guides the form. “It may look spontaneous, but I carefully consider color and pattern when sewing the strips together,” Blanchard says. “If I want to make a ‘fancy’ tree, I’ll seek out haute couture fabrics; if I’m creating a trophy urn meant to show excess, I’ll look for bright gold poly materials.” Whatever the form, though, Blanchard has a central goal: “Each time, I try to create a unique universe or personality.”

    If you’re in New York, you can see some of Blanchard’s works in Soft Structures, on view through August 8 at Jane Lombard Gallery. She’s currently working toward an open studio and exhibition as part of New York’s Textile Month, and you can find more from the artist on her website and Instagram.

    “Portraits,” installation view at SEEDS

    “Remembrance Happy Birthday.” Image © Randy Duchaine

    Detail of “Goddess 11”

    “Urn VI” (2024), fabric, leather, Mylar balloon, 18 x 16 x 22 1/2 inches

    “Bouquet 5.” Image © Paul Plews

    “Bouquet 23”

    Detail of “Remembrance Happy Birthday.” Image © Randy Duchaine

    “Urn I Love You” (2025), fabric, leather, mylar balloon, 28 x 19 x 17 inches

    “Remembrance Ninja Turtles.” Image © Randy Duchaine

    Detail of “Remembrance Ninja Turtles.” Image © Randy Duchaine

    Elodie Blanchard with trees (2022). Image © Randy Duchaine

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    Explore Storytelling Through 300 Years of Quilts in ‘Fabric of a Nation’

    Bisa Butler, “To God and Truth” (2019), print and resist-dyed cottons, cotton velvet, rayon satin, and knotted string, pieced, appliquéd, and quilted; 117 1/2 x 140 5/8 inches. Photos © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All images courtesy of Frist Art Museum, shared with permission

    Explore Storytelling Through 300 Years of Quilts in ‘Fabric of a Nation’

    June 25, 2025

    ArtCraftHistory

    Kate Mothes

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    While we often associate quilts with their function as bedspreads or an enjoyable hobby, the roots of the craft run very deep. The art form has long been associated with storytelling, and numerous styles have enabled makers to share cultural symbols, memories, and autobiographical details through vibrant color and pattern.

    African American quilters have significantly influenced the practice since the 17th century, when enslaved people began sewing scraps of fabric to make blankets for warmth. Through artists like Harriet Powers in the 19th century or the Gee’s Bend Quilters, this powerful mode of expression lives on in rich tapestries and textile works being made today.

    Civil War Zouave Quilt (1863–64), wool plain weave and twill, cotton plain weave and other structures, leather; pieced, appliquéd, and embroidered with silk. Photo © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

    A new exhibition titled Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston opens this week at the Frist Art Museum, surveying nearly 50 quilts from the MFA’s collection. Works span the 19th through 21st centuries, with bold textiles by contemporary artists like Bisa Butler included alongside Civil War-era examples and commemorative album quilts.

    Stories play a starring role in Fabric of a Nation, which delves into the socio-political contexts in which the pieces were made and how narrative, symbolism, and autobiography shaped their compositions. For example, a unique Civil War quilt completed by an unknown maker in 1864 repurposes fabric from Zouave uniforms. Small panels featuring birds, soldiers on horseback, and the American flag transport us to a time when the U.S. had been at war for three years.

    Another fascinating piece is another flag composition in which the stripes have been stitched with dozens of names, including Susan B. Anthony near the top of one of the central columns. Known as the “Hoosier Suffrage Quilt,” it’s thought to chronicle suffrage supporters.

    More recently, Michael C. Thorpe’s untitled work features the bold appliquéd words “Black Man” over pieced batik fabrics. Butler’s large-scale “To God and Truth” is a colorful reimagining of an 1899 photograph. She transforms a black-and-white image into a vibrant, patterned portrait of the African American baseball team of Morris Brown College, Atlanta.

    Fabric of a Nation opens on June 27 and continues through October 12 in Nashville. Find more and plan your visit on the museum’s website. You might also enjoy exploring more quilts by Black Southern makers or Stephen Townes’ embroidered tableaux of leisure in the Jim Crow South.

    Michael C. Thorpe, Untitled (2020), printed cotton plain weave and batting; machine quilted, 20 x 16 inches

    Hoosier Suffrage Quilt (before 1920), cotton plain weave, pieced, embroidered, and quilted. Photo © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

    Unidentified maker. Peacock Alley Chenille Bedspread (1930–40s), cotton plain weave, embroidered with cotton pile; 99 x 88 1/2 inches. Photo © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

    Baltimore album quilt (c. 1847–50), cotton plain weave, pieced, appliquéd, quilted, and embroidered ink. Photo © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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    To ‘Walk the House,’ Do Ho Suh Traverses Memory and Perceptions of Home

    “Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home” (2013-2022), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House.’
    All images © Do Ho Suh, courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin
    New York, Seoul, and London, and Victoria
    Miro. Photo by Jai Monaghan/Tate, shared with permission

    To ‘Walk the House,’ Do Ho Suh Traverses Memory and Perceptions of Home

    April 30, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    “Is home a place, a feeling, or an idea?” That’s the lofty yet immanently relatable question at the heart of Do Ho Suh’s major survey open now at Tate Modern. The London-based Korean artist (previously) explores notions of belonging, connection, comfort, security, and familiarity in large-scale installations that replicate his own homes in Seoul, London, and New York, among a range of vibrant multimedia works.

    Suh is known for his use of gossamer fabric to create immersive, monumental installations. In The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, the artist “examines the intricate relationship between architecture, space, the body, and the memories and moments that make us who we are,” the museum says.

    “Nest/s” (2024), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’

    Visitors are invited to walk through “Nest/s,” for example, an expansive assemblage of colorful, sheer textile structures that link together to form a passageway or conduit. As the boundaries between interior and exterior are blurred, we’re invited to experience architecture from the perspective of movement and perception, highlighting how all of our interactions with other homes or places are inherently linked.

    Issues around shelter, safety, and community are inextricably tied to how we perceive home, especially when for many around the world, those basic needs are in constant peril or upended without warning. “Suh asks timely questions about the enigma of home, identity, and how we move through and inhabit the world around us,” a statement says.

    The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House continues in London through October 19. Plan your visit on the museum’s website, and follow updates on Suh’s Instagram.

    Detail of “Nest/s.” Photo by Jeon Taeg Su

    “Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul” (2024), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’

    Still from “Robin Hood Gardens, Woolmore Street, London E14 0HG” (2018), commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    “Nest/s” (2024), polyester and stainless steel, 410.1 x 375.4 x 2148.7 centimeters. Photo by Jeon Taeg Su

    Detail of “Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home” (2013-2022), installation view at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia. Photo by Sebastian Mrugalski

    “Home Within Home (1/9 Scale)” (2025), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’

    “Nest/s” (2024), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’

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    In Elaborate ‘Textile Paintings,’ Anne von Freyburg Reframes Femininity in European Art History

    “Sunny Side Up (After Fragonard, The Lover Crowned)” (2025), textile painting: acrylic ink, synthetic-fabrics, PVC fabric, tapestry-fabric, sequin fabrics, hand-embroidery, polyester wadding, and hand-dyed tassel fringes on canvas, 223 x 280 centimeters. All images courtesy of the artist and Saatchi Gallery, London, shared with permission

    In Elaborate ‘Textile Paintings,’ Anne von Freyburg Reframes Femininity in European Art History

    April 14, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    As if splashed onto the wall with a monumental brush, Anne von Freyburg’s installations visualize fabric and fiber as gestural splotches of paint. Colors bleed into one another and drips extend to the floor in what the London-based Dutch artist describes as “textile paintings.”

    Drawing on 17th and 18th-century European painting traditions like the still lifes of the Dutch Golden Age and the stylized exuberance of Rococo, von Freyburg reframes relationships between craft and fine art.

    “Fantasia (After Boucher, Venus and Cupid)” (2022), textile painting: acrylic ink, synthetic-fabrics, tapestry-fabric, sequin fabrics, hand-embroidery, polyester wadding, and hand-dyed tassel fringes on canvas, 144 x 195 centimeters

    References to Rococo artists like Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher play prominently in von Freyburg’s solo exhibition, Filthy Cute, at Saatchi Gallery. Tapping into “the clichés of heterosexual romance and societal expectations of women…she explores the pressures women face, particularly the expectations of being ‘caretakers’ and ‘pleasers,’” says a statement. Von Freyburg turns her attention to themes of compassion, freedom, and women as sovereign individuals.

    Filthy Cute celebrates sensuality and the feminine while highlighting unexpected associations between materials. The artist’s abstract compositions often reference florals that are blurred, dripping, and verging on complete abstraction. Glossy fabrics in a range of colors swirl without fully mixing, resulting in sensual shapes that are beguiling and strange.

    Von Freyburg describes one undergirding theme as “commodity fetishism,” tapping into the 17th-century fashion for Dutch floral still lifes and the infamous economic speculation bubble that characterized Tulip Mania between 1634 and 1637.

    The show continues through May 11 in London, running concurrently Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture, which also includes work by von Freyburg. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

    “Electric Feel (After Fragonard, The Pursuit)” (2025), textile painting: acrylic ink, synthetic fabrics, PVC fabric, tapestry-fabric, sequin fabrics, hand-embroidery, polyester wadding, and hand-dyed tassel fringes on canvas, 350 x 250 centimeters

    Detail of “Electric Feel (After Fragonard, The Pursuit)”

    Detail of “Electric Feel (After Fragonard, The Pursuit)”

    “Kabloom (After Jan van Huysum, Flower still-life)” (2024), acrylic ink, synthetic-fabrics, PVC fabric, tapestry-fabric, sequin fabrics, hand-embroidery, polyester wadding, and hand-dyed tassel fringes on canvas, 230 x 130 centimeters

    “Tuttifrutti (After Jan van Huysum, Flower still-life)” (2024), acrylic ink, synthetic-fabrics, PVC fabric, tapestry-fabric, sequin fabrics, hand-embroidery, polyester wadding, and hand-dyed tassel fringes on canvas, 235 x 135 centimeters

    Detail of “Sunny Side Up (After Fragonard, The Lover Crowned)”

    Installation view of ‘Filthy Cute’ at Saatchi Gallery, London

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    In Vivid Reliquaries, Stan Squirewell Layers Anonymous Portraits and Patterned Textiles

    All images courtesy of Stan Squirewell and Claire Oliver Gallery, shared with permission

    In Vivid Reliquaries, Stan Squirewell Layers Anonymous Portraits and Patterned Textiles

    March 28, 2025

    ArtPhotography

    Grace Ebert

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    Through intimate, mixed-media collages, Stan Squirewell excavates the stories of those who might otherwise be lost in anonymity. The artist gathers images from the Smithsonian’s archives and from friends and family that he then reinterprets with vibrant prints and patterns. Layering unknown pasts with present-day additions, Squirewell explores how everyday traditions and rituals remain through generations.

    His new body of work, Robitussin, Hotcombs & Grease, invokes ubiquitous items like the over-the-counter decongestant and hair care. “Growing up, I was shaped by elders around me, and everyday objects like Robitussin, hotcombs, and grease became vessels for the rituals that anchored me to my heritage,” the artist says. “These items transcend their mundane uses: they embody traditions passed down through generations, grounding me in a collective identity.”

    “Girls on Saturn” (2025)

    Squirewell cuts and collages images and fabrics from his collection before photographing the composition, which then undergoes a digital editing process. An elaborate frame complements each piece with charred shou sugi ban edges—a Japanese burning technique—and hand-carved details. The sides bear various inscriptions connecting past and present, including lines from Langston Hughes’ poems and glyphs from ancestral African languages that have fallen out of use.

    Because the identities and histories of many of the subjects are unknown, Squirewell’s work adds a new relevance to their images. How have daily, domestic practices and the legacies of previous generations informed the present? And how do these traditions create a broader collective experience? Rooted in these questions, the dignified works become reliquaries that honor what’s been passed down and how that continues to inform life today.

    Robitussin, Hotcombs & Grease is on view through May 24 at Claire Oliver Gallery in Harlem. Find more from Squirewell on Instagram.

    “Teddy” (2024), artist-printed photos collaged with paint and glitter in a hand-carved shou sugi ban frame, 43 x 35 x 3 inches

    “Teddy’s Lil Sisters” (2024), artist-printed photos collaged with paint and glitter in a hand-carved shou sugi ban frame, 29 x 24 x 2 inches

    “Girls on Saturn” (2025)

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    ‘Imagining the Future’ Honors Aleksandra Kasuba’s Trailblazing Installations and Environments

    “Spectrum. An Afterthought” (1975–2014), synthetic fabric, neon lamps, colored filters, steel, aluminum, plywood, and plastic,
    40 x 105.6 x 53.9 meters. Photo by Antanas Lukšėnas. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    ‘Imagining the Future’ Honors Aleksandra Kasuba’s Trailblazing Installations and Environments

    February 10, 2025

    ArtDesign

    Kate Mothes

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    From immersive fabric installations and sculptures to photography, landscape design, and architecture, the work of Aleksandra Kasuba (1923-2019) merges myriad ideas about how we experience the world around us. The intersection of technology and nature enchanted the late Lithuanian artist, and she often experimented with a variety of materials and the effects of light, hue, and tension to explore relationships between ourselves and notions of shelter and place.

    The first major exhibition of her work in Europe, Imagining the Future at Carré d’Art—Musée d’Art Contemporain, explores the incredible breadth of Kasuba’s artistry.

    “Shell Dwellers III” (1989), paper and collage, 35 × 43.5 centimeters. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Born to an aristocratic family, Kasuba enrolled in art school in 1941, focusing primarily on sculpture and textiles. She married artist Vytautas Kašuba, with whom she fled Lithuania in 1944 in the wake of the Nazi occupation of the country. They landed in a displaced-persons camp in Germany where they stayed until making their way to New York in 1947, and her experience as a refugee and an immigrant significantly affected her work.

    In the U.S., Kasuba found employment in crafts and design and began laying the foundations for her future artistic practice, which merged applied and functional arts with abstraction. Her interdisciplinary practice took shape in earnest the 1950s and 1960s and was deeply influenced by tenets of modernism and the era of space exploration, which cast humanity’s existence on Earth in a new light.

    Mid-20th century scholarship on vernacular architecture also inspired Kasuba, and she was moved by a visit to Bernard Rudofsky’s 1964 exhibition Architecture Without Architects at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He took a broader view of global architecture than the field typically covered and emphasized the ingenuity and beauty of structures built by Indigenous cultures.

    Rudofsky suggested that modernism—particularly modern architecture—had lost touch with the real needs of society, and he urged viewers to pay attention to artistic, idiosyncratic, culturally rich local styles free from elitist design rules.

    “Rock Hill House” (2002). Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Kasuba’s artistic practice blended with daily life in her own living spaces, too, from her New York City home in the 1970s to Rock Hill House, a sculptural dwelling in the New Mexico desert she completed between 2001 and 2005.

    The convergence of sculpture and environmental design also fascinated the artist, spurring unique material combinations in large-scale public interventions and spatial installations. Concerned with how we move through places and are affected by our surroundings, she was also commissioned to create numerous public wall installations using materials like brick, marble, and granite.

    Kasuba explored the relationships between transparency, color, and light in works like “Spectrum,” privileging organic shapes and an immersive passageway made from stretched nylon. Her Space Shelters series, composed of fabric in curving forms without ninety-degree angles, exemplifies her desire to harmonize nature, people, and technology.

    Imagining the Future continues through March 23 in Nîmes, France. Learn more on the museum’s website.

    “Dreaming III” (1963), white marble, 103 x 91 centimeters. Photo Antanas Luksenas. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Installation view of ‘Imagining the Future’ at Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France. Photo by Cédrick Eymenier

    “Live-In Environment, 43W90, NYC” (1971–1972). From the digital archive of Aleksandra Kasuba. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Installation view of ‘Imagining the Future’ at Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France. Photo by Cédrick Eymenier

    Installation view of ‘Imagining the Future’ at Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France. Photo by Cédrick Eymenier

    “Rock Hill House” (2005). Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

    Installation view of ‘Imagining the Future’ at Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France. Photo by Cédrick Eymenier

    “Shell Dwellers VI” (1989), paper and collage, 35 × 43.5 centimeters. Image courtesy of The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba

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    Embellished Vodou Flags by Myrlande Constant Spotlight ‘The Spiritual World of Haiti’

    “Ceromine Bois Caiman” (date unknown), beads and sequins on fabric, 52 x 82 inches. All images © Myrlande Constant, courtesy of the artist and Fort Gansevoort, New York, shared with permission

    Embellished Vodou Flags by Myrlande Constant Spotlight ‘The Spiritual World of Haiti’

    January 28, 2025

    ArtHistorySocial Issues

    Kate Mothes

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    When Myrlande Constant (previously) was a teenager, she worked alongside her mother in a commercial wedding dress factory in Port-au-Prince. There, she learned the tambour embroidery technique, which utilizes a hook to create chain stitches with beads and sequins on fabric.

    “By foregrounding her specialized skills honed in the fashion industry, Constant’s approach to drapo has broken gender barriers and elevated the overlooked creative labor of Haitian female factory workers to the realm of fine art,” says a statement from Fort Gansevoort, which will present the artist’s work next month in a solo exhibition titled The Spiritual World of Haiti.

    “Marasah-Cai Leh-Créole-Marasah-Guinin-Marasah-bois” (date unknown), beads and sequins on fabric, 74 x 55.25 inches

    Drapo, or drapo Vodou, typically describes a style of embroidered flag embellished with beads or sequins, but the term can also be applied to a wide range of art forms like painting, clothing, assemblages, and sculptures. Constant’s pieces, which she has been renowned for since the 1990s, highlight a variety of materials, colors, textures, and all-over compositions brimming with ritual activity and symbols.

    Haitian Vodou, an African diasporic religion that developed between the 16th and 19th centuries, merged Western and Central African traditions with Roman Catholicism. Its divine creator, Bondye, is inaccessible to humans, so spirits known as lwa‘s serve as intermediaries that can be invoked during ceremonies by possessing individuals, enabling communication with Bondye and transmission of advice, admonishment, or healing.

    “Though she considers her art-making to be rooted in spirituality, Constant does not create her works for the purpose of display in Vodou temples, preferring instead to exhibit them in museums and galleries internationally,” a statement says.

    For Constant, art-making is a statement of resistance within the context of Haiti’s extreme political and economic instability. The nation’s current unrest was spurred by protests against high fuel prices in 2018 and a demand that then-president Jovenel Moïse resign. He refused to step down but was assassinated in 2021, further escalating tensions. A federation of gangs continues to clash with the government, spawning more protests, violence, and perpetuating an evolving humanitarian crisis.

    Detail of “Au nom de 29 points cimetiere par pou voir Baron Samedi”

    “Marinette Bois Chèche” is the earliest work that will be on view in the exhibition and depicts the martyrdom of Vodou lwa Marinette. According to folklore, Vodou lwa Marinette was burned alive for fighting against slavery and participating in a paradigm-shifting Bwa Kayiman ceremony in 1791, which spawned the 12-year Haitian Revolution.

    The insurrection, an uprising of enslaved people against French colonial rule, is unique in history because it led to the founding of a state ruled by former captives and non-white people and free from slavery—although it still permitted forced labor. Constant’s title translates to something like “Marinette of the dry wood,” evoking the ceremony that typically takes place around a bonfire and calling upon a momentous period in Haiti’s history.

    The artist’s drapo are densely beaded and often much larger than their traditional counterparts. The most recent work on view in the exhibition, “Devosyon Makaya” spans ten feet wide and took around three years to create. Constant describes her process as “painting with beads,” transforming fabric and findings into elaborate narratives evoking time-honored Haitian customs.

    The Spiritual World of Haiti opens on February 27 and continues through April 26 in New York City.

    “Au nom de 29 points cimetiere par pou voir Baron Samedi” (date unknown), beads and sequins on fabric, 58 x 70 inches

    “Marinette Bois Chéche” (1994), beads and sequins on fabric, 33 x 37 inches

    “Par pou voir torit les saints torit les morts torit armes ou purgatoir bó manman ak bo papa
    maternel et paternal en non digr cela mizerricorde” (date unknown), beads, sequins, and tassels on fabric, 76.5 x 96 inches

    Detail of “Par pou voir torit les saints torit les morts torit armes ou purgatoir bó manman ak bo papa
    maternel et paternal en non digr cela mizerricorde”

    Detail of “Ceromine Bois Caiman”

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    Deniz Kurdak Crafts Fragility and Resilience in Embroidered Depictions of Porcelain

    “Pieces on Green,” 25 x 35 centimeters. All images courtesy of Deniz Kurdak, shared with permission

    Deniz Kurdak Crafts Fragility and Resilience in Embroidered Depictions of Porcelain

    January 27, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Kate Mothes

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    “What draws me to the motif of ceramics is the deep sense of belonging they evoke in me,” says Deniz Kurdak. The London-based artist is fascinated by blue-and-white porcelain—a style that originated in China as early as the 7th century and was broadly imitated and collected around the globe—and the way certain pieces inspire familiarity. She adds, “They have even found their way into my grandmother’s home.”

    Themes of identity, belonging, and memory play central roles in Kurdak’s work, as she draws on personal histories and bases her compositions on real objects that remind her of pieces her grandmother owned.

    “Fragments,” 30 x 40 centimeters

    “Growing up with an abusive father, I found sanctuary in my grandparents’ home—a safe, predictable, and nurturing space where I felt accepted,” the artist tells Colossal. “Along with my admiration for blue-and-white porcelain, my passion for textiles and embroidery was passed down to me by my grandmother.”

    Bringing conceptual elements to needlework, a craft traditionally dismissed in art circles as “women’s work,” she emphasizes expression and narrative. “I like to reimagine the acts of cutting, stitching, and embroidering as forms of emotional repair,” she says, “allowing me to reconstruct and navigate the complexities of my personal history.”

    Long associated with its calming and meditative nature, “embroidery has become both a medium and a means of reflection in my artistic process,” Kurdak says. Seemingly at odds with making intimate and methodical stitches, her images suggest the violence of breakage, suddenness, and the relationship between ornament and utility.

    Kurdak is intrigued by dualities—fragility and resilience, belonging and displacement—which mirror the tensions and contradictions of the human condition. Contrasting brittle yet durable porcelain with pliable yet resistant fabric and thread, she highlights polarities in the act of merging the ideas together.

    “Not Even Close,” 48 x 48 centimeters

    Blue-and-white porcelain predominantly inspires Kurdak’s compositions, but she also renders red, green, or multi-colored pieces in textiles, too. She uses a wide range of needlework and fabric techniques, including appliqué, lacework, and embroidery. Vases appear to melt into streams, lacy decorations hover above the surface, and motifs rearrange into puzzle-like grids or dynamic swirls.

    If you’re in London, “Willow” is currently on view at the Young Masters Art Prize Finalists Exhibition through April 8. Kurdak’s work will be included in Collect Art Fair opening in late February at Somerset House, followed by Affordable Art Fair in March in New York. Learn more on her website, and followed updates on Instagram.

    “Willow,” 60 x 60 centimeters

    “Jar Descending,” 120 x 90 centimeters

    “Anguish in Blue,” 27 x 47 centimeters

    Detail “Anguish in Blue”

    “Disjointed,” 49 x 49 centimeters

    “Dissolving Willow,” 55 x 55 centimeters

    “Mother Jar,” 80 x 80 centimeters

    Detail of “Pieces on Green”

    “This Beyond,” 49 x 49 centimeters

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