Alexandra Kehayoglou

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Alexandra Kehayoglou
Born1981
Buenos Aires, Argentina
NationalityArgentine
OccupationTextile artist
WebsiteOfficial website

Alexandra Kehayoglou (born 1981) is an Argentinian textile artist. She is best known for her large-scale carpets which address topics of climate change.[1]

Biography[]

Kehayoglou was born in 1981 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, which is now one of South America's largest companies of its type. Kehayoglou went on to incorporate the family tradition of carpet-making into her own artistic practice.[2][3]

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 Argentinian landscape.[4]

She currently lives and works in Buenos Aires, out of a workshop attached to the El Espartano factory.[3]

Meaning and origins of her work[]

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 family traditions, specifically her grandmother.[4] She uses recycled scrap yarn from her family's factory to create her work.

Her subject matter is the Argentinean 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]

Works[]

For Paris Fashion Week in 2015, Dries van Noten ordered a tufted rug from Kehayoglou 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.[2]

Her 2016 work No Longer Creek documents the Raggio Creek, a creek north of Buenos Aires 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.[5]

In 2017 she completed Santa Cruz River, titled after the Santa Cruz River in Argentina, which was the proposed site of two major hydroelectric dams.[2]

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.[6]

References[]

  1. ^ a b "BIOGRAPHY — Alexandra Kehayoglou". alexandrakehayoglou.com. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  2. ^ a b c Magazine, Wallpaper* (2015-02-02). "Catwalk carpet: Alexandra Kehayoglou weaves together art and fashion for Dries Van Noten's S/S 2015 showscape". Wallpaper*. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  3. ^ a b Heyman, Stephen (2015-02-09). "A Dream Weaver". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  4. ^ a b "textile terrains: alexandra kehayoglou on weaving memories of forgotten landscapes". designboom | architecture & design magazine. 2021-05-21. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  5. ^ "No Longer Creek — Alexandra Kehayoglou". alexandrakehayoglou.com. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  6. ^ "Lush Tufted Tapestries Document Ecological Changes in Argentina's Landscapes". Colossal. 2021-03-25. Retrieved 2021-11-15.

External links[]

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