I work with a frame loom that is the most archaic, anachronistic and primitive – that helps me make sophisticated finished pieces out of something raw and untamed. Just as said by Gunta Stolz (head of weaving at the Bauhaus) in comparison to mechanical weaving:
“only work on the hand loom allows the kind of latitude for an idea to be developed…”
It’s where true creativity comes to play, prompted by the absence of means, bridging the gap between art and artisanal work. Weaving is my authentic, intuitive, silent language through which I merge timelines, bringing primitive history into the contemporary world because the process itself encapsulates the roots of humanity; in this digitalized world we are drawn to our ancestral origins.
I am from nowhere. From my birth in Beirut I kept moving from Saudi Arabia, to Australia and New York, as well as Paris, London, Brussels Monaco to finally settle in Ibiza where I found a sense of belonging and where the weaving found me, enabling me to grow roots. It came from trying something once and never stopping since. This sudden contact with nature and the indigenous architecture have led me to use rough and natural elements in my work: nature and texture with tribal influences resulting from years of nomadism.
I am self-taught in my art, as were some of the artists by whom I admire like Marguerite Carau-Ishi, whose isolation encouraged the development of a pure style, with a calculated simplicity, or Wilhelmina Fruytier, for her architecturally weighty tapestries.
"The magic is the transformation of chaos into order, weaving nature together with human intelligence."
Inspirational artists for me are Anni Albers for her writings on weaving, Guntha Stolz for pioneering weaving as an artistic craft, Sheila Hicks for maintaining this art craft on the front lines of the art world throughout the decades, Olga de Amaral for reviving her ancestor’s tradition and soul, Lenore Tawney for her personal expressiveness. Magdalena Abakanowicz for her rebellious spirit, Tadek Beutlich for his cascades of unspun materials, and Jagoda Buic, who in speaking of the avant-garde tapestry in the 70’s has said:
“It is nothing more than a return to the primary qualities of weaving and its laws,
a love for the material and the act of directing it to tactile sensibility…
Gaining its place in the plastic movement of today”.
The recent return of textile on the art scene is blatant with the fabulous retrospective of Joseph and Anni Albers at the Musée d’art Moderne de la ville de Paris and the upcoming Abakanovic exhibit at the Tate London in 2022 along with an increasing presence in recent major art fairs.
It all begins with textures and colors and then the impulse to give them a form. The process is not only intuitive, it’s instinctive and primal, rarely calculated or sketched. Ideas and inspiration are never an issue, the obstacle being the elaborate execution, the gestures, the time. It’s a slow, meditative process, and the sensuality of the materials are a driving force in the making.
I have built most of my looms myself. I am proud of their simplicity and what they have enabled me to put out. Although textile art is nothing new, there is a surprise, sometimes a resistance, to acknowledge this artistic form of expression, a silent language that has been used since the beginning of time.
It is an invitation to dive into and to reconnect with our uttermost primal sensuality which needs not explanation nor justification. Just see; touch, smell, feel…
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