Caroline Achaintre: studio spotlight
‘I use wool because it’s such a familiar, warm material – but I like to work with it in unusual, uncanny ways’
Caroline Achaintre is a mixed media artist and, more pertinently, guest curator of the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles.
As the exhibition continues its tour – in Leicester – Achaintre invited us into her London studio to share how she brings sketches to life through tufted wool, explores duality in ceramics, and balances play and unease in her practice.
In this behind-the-scenes video, the artist shares how her distinctive tufted wool pieces begin as spontaneous sketches, explains the tools – including the all-important tufting gun – that help her work at scale, and reflects on the tension between playfulness and restlessness evident in much of her work.
Born in France and raised in Germany, Achaintre works across textiles, ceramics and works on paper, drawing on influences from Animism, Expressionism, theatrical costume and handmade pieces.
See Material Worlds on tour
Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles
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Go behind the works of Yin Xiuzhen’s Hayward Gallery exhibition in the company of Senior Curator Yung Ma and choreographer Julia Cheng.
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The artist behind our current Hayward Gallery exhibition on ideas she can’t abandon, and the evolution of her creative process.
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Take a video tour of the Hayward Gallery exhibition Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life with Senior Curator Yung Ma and our Associate Artist Julia Cheng.