Threading Time: Cecilia Charlton’s Reinkarnacija
In Reinkarnacija at the Zidinys Gallery in Vilnius, London-based American artist Cecilia Charlton draws on the repetitive gestures of textile-making - spinning, weaving, embroidering. Just as the weaver’s shuttle passes back and forth, or the spinner coaxes wool into a twist, Charlton’s work invites us to reconsider the philosophical shape of time: not as a straight line, but as a series of loops and returns. The exhibition pairs her contemporary textile works with historical Lithuanian pieces from the Tamošaitis collection to suggest that within the fibre arts, rebirth is not a metaphor but a method.
Cecilia Charlton, Next, you know what you know (Ocean series, Midnight Zone), Hand-woven cotton and wool yarn, 2023.
In the Ocean Series, a quartet of woven paintings on loan from the National Museum of Lithuania, Charlton uses pattern and colour to explore the unconscious mind through the metaphor of oceanic depth. Moving from the Sunlight Zone to the Abyssal, each panel evokes a specific zone of the sea, becoming increasingly abstract as light gives way to darkness. In the upper layers, she plays with optical distortion - mimicking the shifting surface of water - while deeper zones engage sound and touch, as if reconfiguring the senses to navigate the unknown. The works take inspiration from early ocean explorer William Beebe, who, descending in a bathysphere in 1933, described the light of the deep sea as “blue, but more than blue” - a mysterious, otherworldly hue mirrored in Charlton’s palette.
Cecilia Charlton - Detail of weavings placed on the floor of the Zidinys Gallery in Vilnius.
Also on view is a trio of floor-based weavings that reinterpret the work of Lithuanian-American artist Kazys Varnelis. Where Varnelis translated a childhood surrounded by weaving into op-art painting, Charlton completes the cycle by returning his geometric abstractions to the loom. By dyeing warp threads in opposing gradients before weaving, she achieves an optical shimmer rarely seen in traditional weaving - an effect that speaks to generational echo, visual memory, and the fluid border between painting and cloth. In these works, Charlton plays with the structure of weaving itself, pulling visual illusion from the physical logic of the warp and weft.
Install photos from exhibition 'Reinkarnacija' at Zidinys Gallery in Vilnius.
In a quieter room, Charlton presents a handwoven blanket created during a December residency in the forest village of Kabelių, Dzūkija. Spun partly in her London studio and dyed with foraged plants, the blanket’s traditional Lithuanian pattern speaks of rhythm, ritual, and rootedness. Created through slow engagement with place, people and process, it embodies the seasonal cycles and ecological awareness embedded in vernacular textile traditions. It is both a reflection on local knowledge and a record of Charlton’s embodied time within it.
Cecilia Charlton, Punch card -- Patchwork (blue). Hand-embroidered wool yarn and acrylic paint on canvas, 2022.
Charlton trained first as a painter in New York and London, earning her BFA at Hunter College and her MA at the Royal College of Art. But her shift to textiles has opened a space where historical craft and contemporary consciousness meet. Her research-led practice draws deeply from the cultural and socio-political histories of textile production, while her technical innovations - such as gradient-dyed warps and sensory-responsive patterning - push the boundaries of what woven cloth communicate.
In Reinkarnacija, her works become acts of remembrance, reflection, and return. Through them, Charlton offers a body of work that reflects textile as time, thread as thought, and the hand as a tool for transformation.
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Further Information:
Reinkarnacija is on show now at the Zidinys Gallery in Vilnius, until 9 August 2025.
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Image Credits:
Lead: Cecilia Charlton, The flower of what's true (red), 2024. Hand-embroidered wool yarn on cotton canvas over cedar panel, 24-carat gold leaf.