Weaving a world into being
- Gabriela builds experimental worlds from unusual threads
- She brings academic rigor and artistic style to her work
- Her pieces blend the rigid structure of weaving with an almost impressionistic looseness
Gabriela Nirino’s loose and artistic woven pieces and forms originate from a need to find order in chaos. While studying design at the University of Buenos Aires in her native Argentina, she found that weaving helped her organise her thoughts. “The act of building a structure through weaving gave my chaotic mind space and calm,” she says. After teaching at the university and working for many years in the commercial textile field, she now explores and creates woven pieces in a more open way. “I feel like I have returned to who I was when I was a child, and I do not need to hide behind the structure and the techniques anymore. I weave and work more from my feelings instead of from my head,” she says. Her pieces are generally woven from natural fibres, with occasional pieces of embroidery floss and metallic yarn. To this she adds a miscellany of unusual items from branches to magnets and metallic inserts for interest.
INTERVIEW
While I was studying at the University of Buenos Aires, I was inspired by one professor who is a great textile artist. We had a special seminar about pre-Columbian textiles that blew my mind. I found that weaving was perfect for helping me deal with chaos.
Books have always been important to me, and I am inspired by stories and words. Photography has also influenced my practice. I find certain types of image so evocative and intriguing. In more recent years, I have been driven more and more by the material itself, and how it leads me in the making.
Experimenting with something I have found, a plant, for example, or a new material I have discovered, is more interesting than finishing an actual piece. I love to prepare the fibres and to weave without an idea in mind. It helps me focus on the movement of the body and the material.
I am currently returning to my old journals. Looking back makes me realise which aspects or ideas have always been here. It helps me to connect with a time when I was more free. As I have gained experience, I am now not so worried about doing it all perfectly. I am learning to lose control and feel more.
