I wish I could fill my home with Alexandra Kehayoglou's work.
The Argentinian artist preserves rivers, forests, and wetlands by recreating them as hand-tufted rugs. She captures texture and topography too, rendering the rolling hills and lush riverbanks that fill her memories and dreams.
Sometimes her work depicts restorations that haven't happened yet, as in the case of the pastizales (grasslands) largely razed and replaced by Buenos Aires.
These landscapes are the places of her ancestors who have made textiles for generations, repeating the same strokes, traditions, and processes across time like mantras. She describes them as portals to collective memory, as well as a place to keep the pain. As a way to help love grow back.
Kehayoglou makes tapestries too, outlining distant horizons that erase the walls they climb.
