Chilean textile artist Maite Izquierdo has exhibited her conceptual works of beautiful colour combinations of fabrics in numerous exhibitions internationally.  Her latest body of work focuses on representing and healing the layers of emotion and experience within herself. “I work from intuition. The colour gives me the guideline to flow and communicate through the textile material.”

What are your early memories of textiles?

I always accumulated textiles. As a child I was fascinated by fabric stores. Seeing the rolls of fabrics ordered by colour, touching them and hiding inside was my favourite panorama.

I grew up with the noise of the sewing machine. My mother made clothes for my sisters and me (I am the oldest of eight). Thus, I learned from a young age to weave, to embroider and since I ́ve always made some garment for myself, to wear it, dress it or decorate something or give it to my friends.

What is your background in textiles?

I’m an art graduate. I studied at the P. Catholic University of Chile and I specialised in engraving. I married young and was given my first sewing machine as a wedding gift. With it I started making skirts for my acquaintances, after a short time the skirts became famous … and I ended up making patchwork skirts with scraps bought at a fabric discard store for lots of young girls celebrating their 15-year-old birthday and high school graduation parties. It was a hit!

At the end of that successful year of newlyweds we moved to the USA (one year) and then to Australia (three years). Being away, without being able to paint or make engravings due to the small space where we lived, I started sewing all these pieces, like patchworks- textile treasures –  leftovers that I treasured from the skirts. It was just the beginning.

When I was pregnant with my first child I literally started making my textile nest in the USA I started sewing all these scraps as a way to paint with fabrics. From there I never left textiles again. Textile techniques have been my most faithful companion on the road, always versatile and bearable with my motherhood (four boys). I was always interested in lints and materials. Constant experimentation.

Australia motivated me to communicate through textiles and to recognise my great passion for the Latin American colour that I carry within. I took several courses and got involved with the Australian Textile Manufacturers Association (ATESDA). They welcomed me into that very nice and generous community.

Textile art is highly developed in Australia, much more than in Chile 15 years ago. That led me to meet people from the artistic circuit, to exhibit … and to return to Chile after four years having been in several textile exhibitions.

What is it about textiles as an art form that appeals to you?

Textile is somehow so close to ourselves, it is our second skin …

It shelters us on a daily basis, so when this materiality is translated into a work of art, in some way that requires me to take it to extremes so that it achieves meaning. This idea has been constant in my career, at first it was very unconscious, but today I see the expansive as something fundamental in my work.

By taking it to extremes, I feel that this is how it begins to signify and reflects in an evident way its very protective essence as a shelter for the body.

My work is very sensual: it invites the experience of feeling, touching.

Today I visualise this search from the Skin. It is where I am now and I would like to continue developing. I am looking to represent the delving into layers for a self-knowledge of the core or essential interior.

I try to repair one by one these layers that are revealed as I go inwards. Self-absorption healing the “onion layers”.

More than a self-portrait, I seek to generate and communicate, heal certain emotions and specific experiences in me. Release guilt, pain or experiences.

Before, in my work I sought to reflect the present … but little by little this palpable visualisation of the now, gives an account of my own history … that when taking them out of me through art they become universal and true. It helps me heal and thus move forward freely and, incidentally, bond with another (spectator).

What techniques do you use? 

In my artistic work I have developed various textile techniques in which the search for colour prevails. I’m interested in rediscovering textiles with history and breaking them down, decomposing them. The fibers often offer a new look and a palette of its own is created. Colour theory becomes essential: it orders, saturates and evolves in harmony.

Textile is the raw material; allowing it to be sewed, slit, and linked; Thus arises a creation that communicates the beauty of what we are today in our time. It is a remnant rescued, a second skin. Textile relates every day with both the intimate and the external, and when I to work on it, I observe what it has to it offers me, I synchronise materiality and chromatisms, chromatic relations and then, at the same time, symbolical relationships appears: life, death, shelter, anguish, landscapes and body.

Fabrics are found in various places and circumstances, they are rescued from the use for which they were created. They are treasured, dyed and sewn. Here reigns the pleasure of craftsmanship in art, a true quest for beauty through experimentation. A creative work that requires time and patience, in which the creative process becomes an obsession. Like a ritual, the result of my action forms a large volume that embraces. The fragility of the material makes us explore the changing and the ephemeral. Materials that rise to intertwine, and thus cherish the given space.

How do you create a piece? 

I work from intuition. The colour gives me the guideline to flow and communicate through the textile material.

Where do you work?

At my studio. It is my favourite place in the World. But I am always working. Recently, during the quarantine period due to the Covid, I set up a corner in my house to always continue experimenting.

I know this is a hard question but how long does a bigger piece take?

It depends a lot on the size and the technique that I am going to use. I am quite fast and energetic when working. I like to flow when creating. For large textiles, such as the one I made for the Mandarín Oriental Hotel in Santiago de Chile, it took me almost two years … especially in the design and choice of colour and material to be used to work together with the architecture and interior design team of the project.

I work a lot in series, doing several works at the same time. On smaller works, I can do it in one day or take weeks.

What are you most proud of in your art career so far?

I am very proud to maintain a constant and dynamic artistic career. Despite the difficulties, my motherhood or where I am, I always try to reinvent myself to continue communicating through art. I am fortunate to be able to live on what I am passionate about. My work is part of me.

Do you have any advice for aspiring textile artists?

Work, work and work. Trust what you believe and love. Try to always be nurturing in a creative community. Prioritise community work to go further with others.

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