pastoral carpets

Strands of discarded yarn from a textile manufacturer become the sky, water, sand, bark and moss in realistic large-scale landscapes by Alexandra Kehayoglou in project intersecting fine art and carpet making. The artist retrieves scraps and unwanted materials from her family’s Buenos Aires factory, El Espartano, and painstakingly manipulates the threads into a point-by-point weft to create layer after layer of each composition.

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The results are textural tapestries worthy of any gallery wall, yet still practical for functional usage. Some larger pieces stretch from the wall onto the floor, effectively immersing the viewer in the natural location of the artist’s choosing, whether that’s a dark, lush forest or a palm tree-lined beach.

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Some pieces are designed to lay on the floor like conventional carpets, but their irregular shape makes them look like islands and archipelagos of greenery set against hard, impersonal surfaces like tile or even the asphalt of streets when they’re on display outdoors.

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El Espartano is known for using highly distinctive yarn and thread to produce heirloom-quality textiles, and through her art, Kehayaglou expands her family’s legacy in a new direction.