Alexandra Kehayoglou | |
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Born | 1981 (age 42–43) Buenos Aires, Argentina |
Occupation | Textile artist |
Website | Official website |
Alexandra Kehayoglou (born 1982) is an Argentine textile artist. She is best known for her large-scale carpets and tapestries reflecting natural landscapes, works which address the topic of climate change. [1] She won the Konex Award from Argentina in 2022. [2]
Kehayoglou was born in 1982 in Buenos Aires, Argentina to a family of carpet-makers. Her grandparents immigrated from Isparta (present-day Turkey) in the 1920s, bringing with them their practice of making Ottoman-style rugs. Her grandmother founded a carpet-making company, El Espartano. Kehayoglou went on to incorporate the family tradition of carpet-making into her own artistic practice. [3] [4]
She grew up in a house in Argentina surrounded by a garden, a forest, a farm, and a river, which influenced her artistic interest in nature and the Argentine landscape. [5]
She currently lives and works in Athens . [4]
Her technique relies heavily on the hand-tufting system, a laborious type of textile weaving used in carpet-making. The subject matter links her with her families traditions, specifically her grandmother. [5] She uses recycled scrap yarn from her families factory to create her work.
Her subject matter is the Argentine landscape that she calls home. She often travels to new locations to research and study the landscapes she depicts. Her work represents places which have been impacted by climate change or damaged by human activity. Her work has become known for its call for environmental preservation and awareness. [1]
For Paris Fashion Week in 2015, Dries van Noten ordered a tufted rug from Kehayoglou for a catwalk that covered the entire stage. The carpet consisted of four parts and totaled 144 square meters. It was completed by three 10-member teams in 16 days. The carpet is an abstraction of the Argentine landscape where she lives. [3]
Her 2016 work No Longer Creek documents the Raggio Creek, a creek north of Buenos Aires where she used to go running, whose banks have been damaged by human activity. Her work represents what the creek used to look like to reflect the greenery and landscape that has been lost. It calls the viewer to experience this environment that no longer exists and reconnect with lost nature. [6] [7]
In 2017 she completed Santa Cruz River, titled after the Santa Cruz River in Argentina, for the National Gallery of Victoria Triennial. The river was the proposed site of two major hydroelectric dams. [3]
Her 2018 series titled Prayer Rugs addresses the landscapes of the Parana Delta Wetlands, which has been damaged by deforestation, hunting, the introduction of foreign species of fauna, and both domestic and industrial pollution. Her work documents the "micro-narratives" of the surviving plants and wildlife in this region. [8]
A rug is a piece of cloth, similar to a carpet, but it does not span the width of a room and is not attached to the floor. It is generally used as a floor covering, or as a decorative feature.
A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon, or polyester have often been used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts that are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term carpet is often used in a similar context to the term rug, but rugs are typically considered to be smaller than a room and not attached to the floor.
Fiber art refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labor on the part of the artist as part of the works' significance, and prioritizes aesthetic value over utility.
Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (1861–1875) was a furnishings and decorative arts manufacturer and retailer founded by the artist and designer William Morris with friends from the Pre-Raphaelites. With its successor Morris & Co. (1875–1940) the firm's medieval-inspired aesthetic and respect for hand-craftsmanship and traditional textile arts had a profound influence on the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century.
Tufting is a type of textile manufacturing in which a thread is inserted on a primary base. It is an ancient technique for making warm garments, especially mittens. After the knitting is done, short U-shaped loops of extra yarn are introduced through the fabric from the outside so that their ends point inwards.
Ryijy is a woven Finnish long-tufted tapestry or knotted-pile carpet hanging.
Azerbaijani carpet is a traditional carpet (rug) made in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani carpet is a handmade textile of various sizes, with a dense texture and a pile or pile-less surface, whose patterns are characteristic of Azerbaijan's many carpet-making regions. Traditionally, the carpets were used in Azerbaijan to cover floors, decorate interior walls, sofas, chairs, beds and tables.
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Scandinavia has a long and proud tradition of rug-making on par with many of the regions of the world that are perhaps more immediately associated with the craft—regions such as China and Persia. Rugs have been handmade by craftspeople in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden for centuries, and have often played important cultural roles in each of these countries. Contemporary Scandinavian rugs—most especially Swedish rugs—are among the most sought after rugs in the world today, largely due to the contributions of designers like Märta Måås-Fjetterström. The story of Scandinavian rugs is a vital chapter in the cultural study of Scandinavia, as it reveals a great deal about the aesthetic and social conventions of that region.
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