Swap the flexible warp on your loom for brass wire, weave across it with ordinary yarn, and lift the cloth away. It stands up by itself. That is how Brazilian artist Alex Rocca builds some of his mantles, and it sums up Threads of Memory, his two-person show with Ivorian artist Médéric Turay at OOA Gallery, on until 31 October.
Alex Rocca, Hantu Mantle, 2026. Courtesy of the artist.
Rocca’s mantles and masks marry fibre with brass and glass, and Hantu Mantle (2026) carries ceramic inside a woven body of wool and silk. The results seem protective and ceremonial at once, soft in one glance and rigid in the next. His research draws on Afro-Brazilian heritage and Bantu and Yoruba cosmologies, and the slow labour of stitching and binding stores hours of time in every piece. Largely self-taught, he describes working as a dialogue between what he intends and what the material allows. “The work takes shape through the process of making it,” he says...
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Image Credits:
Lead: Alex Rocca, Topo II, 2023 (Detail). Viscose, cotton, silk and natural wool.
All further images as credited in captions and courtesy of OOA Gallery