Artist Josefina Concha (b.1985) is master of textile art, who brings forward centuries of Latin American heritage through a communion with craft and nature. By using elements such as skin, hair, plants and animals as initial inspiration, she has found in the thousands of layers of woven thread the possibility of painting and drawing without relying on those mediums, and instead echoing a tradition that has been passed on through generations of women. Nature is her main source of inspiration, its resemblance to the human body, the exuberance of color and form, the vulnerability of live matter, the visual and symbolic richness of the elements, these are the subjects which inspire her body of work.
Her pieces are ethereal, complex yet harmonious woven textiles, often times reflections of the female being, spiral forms that are born naturally from the sewing machine, that contain within itself the power to continue to grow permanently: they have a beginning, but no end. The almost mesmerizing process of meticulously covering the fabric with thread is for the artist a way of being fully present, body and mind in tune. Like cultivating a garden, it is a labor that should not be rushed, that requires a method and can provide stillness for the spirit, in the manner of a mantra.
Josefina’s work longs for order, for harmony. The imperfections of manual labor that are meekly accepted, and the perpetual rebirth inherent in the spiral, are the means that allow the artist to enter into the ways of the mind and in this search for beauty.
