In my artwork and creative projects, I use textile based media as a tool for communication; to record and speak about the individual, society, and the hand of the maker. I work with concepts of time, labor, and cloth as a tool for personal expression. My current body of work explores the value of cloth on both a personal and societal level.
I create visual recordings through the use of detritus from my life and studio. These elements and works from the past are employed into new forms that serve to document and comment on the material objects that tangibly define the work of my hands. These are woven pieces, broken forms, and cut offs of previous works. They track time and place, creating a sequence of objects that allude to written text and recording through the use of fiber, concrete, and metal. Through community based interactive weavings, I am able to create works in collaboration with diverse individuals, providing each person a platform to express their ideas. I value textile objects and processes and by bringing them out of my studio, and recreating the way they are being perceived, I work to give the viewer a new perspective on their value.
I am a Portuguese interdisciplinary artist living and working in Southern California. My lived experience and my interest in activism are the driving forces in my creative process. I use my artwork as a tool for activism, drawing on social issues that have affected me on a personal level, such as my experience of motherhood, the politics of childbirth or sexual violence. My artwork explores universal issues of gender and collective identity, culture, memory and loss, while it is imbued with the feeling of saudade, a typically Portuguese trait roughly translated as a nostalgic longing or yearning of someone or something of the past.
I have used a wide range of media - including painting, installation, social practice, video and sound - but drawing and photography remain at the core of my practice. Influenced by Vija Celmins's drawings, Andrea Bowers use of text and activism and Suzanne Lacy’s commitment to social justice, my work examines inequality and is borne out of a desire to call attention to the often invisible and overlooked issues that affect primarily women.
@celiarochastudio