Loom

Loom is the fabric woven in life lived and life extended. It is the tedious close inspection of material and craft as domesticated fine art. Through considered construction, making and unmaking, each thread breathes a story carried through past, present, and future. The hands before mine, their touch, their labour, is everlasting in each careful stitch. It is a story of life unravelled and rebuilt.

The works are formed from a mixture of found and handmade fibres. Here, once wools and yarns from op shops are pulled apart and hand spun into new forms, old blankets are repurposed into threads, a tapestry of their past emerges.

Words with help from Holly Sutherland, 2026.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ella Rizzi

My work is an intimate recollection and rediscovery of myself and my past. Through oil painting and textiles, I render blurred and fragmented imagery to replicate the erosion of memory (and hence, identity) across generations, the fundamentally incomplete and ever-shifting understanding of our history. Working with textiles becomes a form of reclamation of craft and of the often-unseen labour of women, grounded in and inspired by the histories and practices of the women in my family.

Artist website

Image: Ella Rizzi, The dinner table, 2026, weaving, 19 x 27 cm, image courtesy of the artist.