Tuesday, September 3, 2019

BEAUTY: Rug--Alexandra Kehayoglou

Textile artist Alexandra Kehayoglou has created a series of what she calls Prayer Rugs by which she means rugs that replicate disappearing landscapes as a way to pray for their survival. Her Biography explains it all.

Alexandra Kehayoglou (Buenos Aires, 1981) is a visual artist who works primarily with textile materials. She creates her pieces in her studio in Buenos Aires, utilizing a wide array of technical skills with which she produces works combining textiles, sculpture and installation. She is primarily interested in production processes bringing together art and craft, and develops functional works as complete works of art, in which knowledge of the materials, the technique, and spectator are inseparably intertwined.

The pieces are made with surplus materials, weaved with the handtuft technique using a machine which the artist manipulates upon vertical frames, inserting stitch by stitch. The production process is arduous and long, requiring much physical effort and a very precise technique.

Kehayoglou’s repertoire includes memories of various native landscapes that the artist has visited and desires to preserve over time. Her renowned pastizales (grasslands), fields, and shelter tapestries are like sublime realities which the viewer can contemplate or utilize. Each one is unique, with a texture, weave and palette that will not be repeated. Each piece is created from an ancient family tradition that nonetheless gives new meaning to the craft of weaving by hand.

Alexandra Kehayoglou’s work has become renowned as an outcry against deforestation and devastation, and for its call for environmental awareness. It is also a warning against the extinction of the wilderness, as well as a strong voice for changing a complacent society which does not seem sufficiently worried about the drastic climate changes brought about by mankind’s intense presence on Earth.

I think they are beautiful. And let's hope they are not elegies. But I fear they are.


https://alexandrakehayoglou.com/

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