FAMILY THREADS: Siblings by Catarina Riccabona
Hanging 2 metres 30 centimetre wide and one metre 60 centimetres tall is a creamish woven textile made of 2 long panels hung landscape; its surface has small rectangular blocks of different weaves and fringes. Entitled ‘Ghost’ it sits above a large fireplace. It has a ghostly presence and also absence. It speaks says its maker, Catarina Riccabona of her family. “To me is really important that it's so central. Because it is about a brother who became a ghost, not only did he ghost us but he was there so prominently through his absence. It’s super central, that whole topic is always there right in the middle of the room.”
Image and image above: Alignment, 2024, Diptych handwoven in linen, paper yarn & raffia, H 200 x W 240cm.
Catarina is known for her loose woven hangings as well as her more commercial throws and cushions, but her new exhibition ‘Siblings’ at 8 Holland Street is her first themed show. It comprises 14 hangings composed of 26 separate panels and has extraordinarily been completed in just two and a half months. It is a labour of love and pain and now some joy.
Her father, a paediatric urologist, died unexpectedly and intestate when running his annual clinic in Eritrea. For some time after his death, Catarina found it hard to work and when first asked to do the show, had no thought of making it so personal. As in many families, the aftermath of death has been complicated and Catarina and 2 of her siblings have found themselves at odds with their other brother. Many blood families and even chosen families (friends,) find themselves confused by the action of a particular individual and Catarina has used textiles to express this confusion, expressing a universal theme.
Her work ‘Thicker than Water’ is composed of nine highly textured, different red panels hung together. Each is very different from the others but each has an overall connection to the whole. “I was just thinking about questions of loyalty, within the expectations of loyalty. Why is it that people expect that? Why do I feel that people expect this from me and why do I feel I can't give that? Why are my expectations not met? Why is he treating me not like family? There are millions and millions of questions that are all under this one roof. What does it mean to be a family and how reliable is that really when you're facing a problem?” Her show evolved from this questioning, but Catarina believes that these questions are not specific to her, but are faced by most people at some point in their lives about families or friendship groups.
Catarina didn’t initially study textiles, but trained as a translator in her native Austria before coming to London. Her family were doctors, not especially interested in the arts, though her mother was a proficient sewer and knitter. “You would go to an exhibition and then say, beautiful, beautiful; but it was not a very deep exchange. I think ultimately it was to consume, not to engage further. I only discovered that myself much later when I was in London.”
Image left: The Bigger Picture, 2024, Vertical diptych handwoven in linen, paper yarn, alpaca & cotton, H 200 x W 120cm. Image right: Three Musketeers II, 2024, Single panel handwoven in linen, raffia and paper yarn, H 50 x W 40cm.
After 18 months in London in front of a computer she was disillusioned and realised how much she liked art. She chucked in her job, got an internship at the Victoria Miro Gallery and then aged 30 did a Foundation at Chelsea College. “I wanted to paint, to work on a big scale, creating surface. But I was also totally frustrated and crying because it just didn't work and I didn't understand the teaching methods. I couldn't handle all that freedom. I was used to the Austrian way where you were told what to do. You raised your hand if you wanted to say something. I just didn't get it.” But she did get into Central St Martins after attending an Open Day. “I saw the looms for the first time, those machines looked so fascinating and they were partly very serious, partly so playful like in the playground, where you would climb up and change some elements to change the pattern.”
On graduation in 2007, she went to Luxembourg with her then-partner, but after 5 years she uprooted her life, returning to London having seen in a Cockpit Newsletter about a new special award for weavers funded by Cockpit and the Clothworkers. She applied and was successful, receiving a subsidised studio and access to looms. In 2013 recommended by Eleanor Pritchard, her former tutor also at Cockpit, she began making for the New Craftsmen, but working part-time for Eleanor. “I just wanted to be this hands-on person, keep it small but have total control over it. That way you can work with very different materials.” Then she started collaborating with 8 Holland Street, making work to commission for interior designers.
“I was always drawn to upscaling. I'm not the weaver that likes super intricate fine silks and stuff. I'm not patient. I need chunkier yarn, so you can actually produce a piece within a reasonable amount of time.” She enjoyed making throws as a place to experiment and be versatile. “I was not interested in designing a repeat pattern. I kind of use this hands-on nature of feeling the yarn and very crazily mixing different thicknesses that will make the selvedge wavy and stuff like that. I broke all the rules in a way just to, almost paint with threads. I was trying to create on the loom.”
She uses a variety of threads including paper, raffia, linen and even garden twine and relies on block design in most of her weaves to give some structure. “You have some definition across the plane or the surface, but it's also really flexible. You can determine the size of the blocks completely. That's where all the maths comes in.” Her loom has 24 shafts and she can easily cope with 3 different blocks. However, that doesn’t make her work symmetrical. She likes asymmetry, the looseness and the unexpected.
“My loom is fairly complex. I can do super complicated-looking structures. I think it often ends up looking quite complex simply because I assign different weave structures to different blocks which sit next to each other across the width of the fabric. Some weave structures don't like to be next to each other. They don't look good. Others are really good together. I'm sort of constantly hunting for good combinations. I reinterpret every single time.”
Image: Left, Right and Centre, 2024, Vertical diptych handwoven in linen, paper yarn and raffia, H 200 x W 120cm.
However for ‘Siblings’ the designs meant that she needed to do some paper sketches first, because of the arrangements of the blocks. In addition, the work was so large that she couldn’t hang it on the wall in her studio and never saw it hanging properly before seeing it in the gallery.
Creating the show has been exceptionally hard work, but after a break after her father’s death, she found weaving helpful to clear her head. “It's an activity that is sort of almost an extension of myself. It's part of me, it's my hands. It's like it flows out of me. It was initially just helping me gain some space, to gain focus, not just think about difficult situations. The web that you're creating is like the invisible nets of a family that give you structure and hold you but at the same time bind you into situations unless you forcefully cut yourself loose. I guess I just have to let it go now and see what people make of it, but the process itself is definitely as important as the results to me.” Those results will certainly have resonance with many visitors.
Images courtesy of Boz Gagovski
Siblings by Catarina Riccabona is on show at 8 Holland Street until 6 July 2024.
Find out more and plan your visit:
8hollandstreet.com/events/49
Catarina is known for her loose woven hangings as well as her more commercial throws and cushions, but her new exhibition ‘Siblings’ at 8 Holland Street is her first themed show. It comprises 14 hangings composed of 26 separate panels and has extraordinarily been completed in just two and a half months. It is a labour of love and pain and now some joy.
Her father, a paediatric urologist, died unexpectedly and intestate when running his annual clinic in Eritrea. For some time after his death, Catarina found it hard to work and when first asked to do the show, had no thought of making it so personal. As in many families, the aftermath of death has been complicated and Catarina and 2 of her siblings have found themselves at odds with their other brother. Many blood families and even chosen families (friends,) find themselves confused by the action of a particular individual and Catarina has used textiles to express this confusion, expressing a universal theme.
Her work ‘Thicker than Water’ is composed of nine highly textured, different red panels hung together. Each is very different from the others but each has an overall connection to the whole. “I was just thinking about questions of loyalty, within the expectations of loyalty. Why is it that people expect that? Why do I feel that people expect this from me and why do I feel I can't give that? Why are my expectations not met? Why is he treating me not like family? There are millions and millions of questions that are all under this one roof. What does it mean to be a family and how reliable is that really when you're facing a problem?” Her show evolved from this questioning, but Catarina believes that these questions are not specific to her, but are faced by most people at some point in their lives about families or friendship groups.
Catarina didn’t initially study textiles, but trained as a translator in her native Austria before coming to London. Her family were doctors, not especially interested in the arts, though her mother was a proficient sewer and knitter. “You would go to an exhibition and then say, beautiful, beautiful; but it was not a very deep exchange. I think ultimately it was to consume, not to engage further. I only discovered that myself much later when I was in London.”
Image left: The Bigger Picture, 2024, Vertical diptych handwoven in linen, paper yarn, alpaca & cotton, H 200 x W 120cm. Image right: Three Musketeers II, 2024, Single panel handwoven in linen, raffia and paper yarn, H 50 x W 40cm.
After 18 months in London in front of a computer she was disillusioned and realised how much she liked art. She chucked in her job, got an internship at the Victoria Miro Gallery and then aged 30 did a Foundation at Chelsea College. “I wanted to paint, to work on a big scale, creating surface. But I was also totally frustrated and crying because it just didn't work and I didn't understand the teaching methods. I couldn't handle all that freedom. I was used to the Austrian way where you were told what to do. You raised your hand if you wanted to say something. I just didn't get it.” But she did get into Central St Martins after attending an Open Day. “I saw the looms for the first time, those machines looked so fascinating and they were partly very serious, partly so playful like in the playground, where you would climb up and change some elements to change the pattern.”
On graduation in 2007, she went to Luxembourg with her then-partner, but after 5 years she uprooted her life, returning to London having seen in a Cockpit Newsletter about a new special award for weavers funded by Cockpit and the Clothworkers. She applied and was successful, receiving a subsidised studio and access to looms. In 2013 recommended by Eleanor Pritchard, her former tutor also at Cockpit, she began making for the New Craftsmen, but working part-time for Eleanor. “I just wanted to be this hands-on person, keep it small but have total control over it. That way you can work with very different materials.” Then she started collaborating with 8 Holland Street, making work to commission for interior designers.
“I was always drawn to upscaling. I'm not the weaver that likes super intricate fine silks and stuff. I'm not patient. I need chunkier yarn, so you can actually produce a piece within a reasonable amount of time.” She enjoyed making throws as a place to experiment and be versatile. “I was not interested in designing a repeat pattern. I kind of use this hands-on nature of feeling the yarn and very crazily mixing different thicknesses that will make the selvedge wavy and stuff like that. I broke all the rules in a way just to, almost paint with threads. I was trying to create on the loom.”
She uses a variety of threads including paper, raffia, linen and even garden twine and relies on block design in most of her weaves to give some structure. “You have some definition across the plane or the surface, but it's also really flexible. You can determine the size of the blocks completely. That's where all the maths comes in.” Her loom has 24 shafts and she can easily cope with 3 different blocks. However, that doesn’t make her work symmetrical. She likes asymmetry, the looseness and the unexpected.
“My loom is fairly complex. I can do super complicated-looking structures. I think it often ends up looking quite complex simply because I assign different weave structures to different blocks which sit next to each other across the width of the fabric. Some weave structures don't like to be next to each other. They don't look good. Others are really good together. I'm sort of constantly hunting for good combinations. I reinterpret every single time.”
Image: Left, Right and Centre, 2024, Vertical diptych handwoven in linen, paper yarn and raffia, H 200 x W 120cm.
However for ‘Siblings’ the designs meant that she needed to do some paper sketches first, because of the arrangements of the blocks. In addition, the work was so large that she couldn’t hang it on the wall in her studio and never saw it hanging properly before seeing it in the gallery.
Creating the show has been exceptionally hard work, but after a break after her father’s death, she found weaving helpful to clear her head. “It's an activity that is sort of almost an extension of myself. It's part of me, it's my hands. It's like it flows out of me. It was initially just helping me gain some space, to gain focus, not just think about difficult situations. The web that you're creating is like the invisible nets of a family that give you structure and hold you but at the same time bind you into situations unless you forcefully cut yourself loose. I guess I just have to let it go now and see what people make of it, but the process itself is definitely as important as the results to me.” Those results will certainly have resonance with many visitors.
Images courtesy of Boz Gagovski
Siblings by Catarina Riccabona is on show at 8 Holland Street until 6 July 2024.
Find out more and plan your visit:
8hollandstreet.com/events/49