Crossovers: An interview with Caroline Derveaux and Sara Kelly
Crossovers: An interview with Caroline Derveaux and Sara Kelly
The crossover potential between weaving and painting...
An exhibition this week, CROSSOVERS, brought together the distinct practices of Paris-based painter Caroline Derveaux and London-based weaver Sara Kelly, celebrating colour, line and shape. Curated by Jade French and Nastasia Alberti, the show explored how abstract form can be used as a connective tissue.
Sara’s weaving practice embodies a deep respect for materials and craftsmanship, where attention to detail and the processes involved in dyeing and weaving create works that are rich in texture and depth. Caroline’s abstract paintings invite viewers into a world of geometric forms and vibrant hues, transforming architectural shapes into visual narratives. Both artists are interested in how their respective mediums can be used to build community and exist within public space. In this interview, they discuss what kinds of crossovers can be found between paintbrush and thread…
Crossovers: An interview with Caroline Derveaux and Sara Kelly
Why are colour and shape important to your practice, and how do these elements help you communicate your ideas in your work?
SK: Colour and shape provide an intuitive outlet that can evoke emotion, memory, and connection within my work. I like to use colours and organic shapes to explore different narratives within my personal expression but also within community projects. Colour especially can convey feelings or ideas that may be difficult to articulate in words – which also allows people to connect with it in their own unique ways.
CD: Colour and shape are part of my abstract language, like using letters and numbers to communicate within the world. Most of the time I don’t think about it at all, or analyse it, like language appears naturally when growing up. I follow an intuition of what is right and what is wrong, what needs to appear and what needs to be said. I could not live without this language, they are my tools to make my vision be understood.
Tell us about the mediums you work in (and if you have any thoughts on how painting/weaving might connect as processes)?
CD: I work mostly with paint, but with mediums and sizes variations. It goes from small paintings to 1000 m2 murals with sometimes 3D sculptures or digital works. Within my abstract path, I chose a very methodical painting process. Besides the sketching part, it follows very strict rules of painting each area with several layers and making sure colours and delimitations are abrupt, in a hard-edged legacy.
SK: My primary medium is tapestry weaving, although I also regularly use embroidery and quilting within my practice. I have also worked within design and architecture, which has contributed to my love of working with space and community. Weaving, and most other textile crafts, are usually repetitive and very slow practices, that forces the maker to engage consciously and most importantly, slowly! The rhythmic process of weaving mirrors the patience and care involved in bringing people together, which is why I love introducing weaving projects into community spaces – where everyone contributes to a collective growing piece.
Community work is important in both your practices – tell us a bit more about how this manifests in your work…
CD: Community work is essential for artists. It allows them to open up their practice and have a direct and effective action. The link established is in my eyes very precious because painting in the studio can also be solitary. I think above all that the cliché of artists alone in their studios is no longer relevant. We need to feed each other and what better way than painting together?
A project that I am the most proud of is Massa Stories in Morrocco. I have been going there since 2019 and it all started by painting Ahmed’s fisherman cave on the coast, which I had the luck to paint. We decided with Margaux Derhy, the initiator behind this residency, to continue the project by painting murals in the village in 2022 with local women, giving them an opportunity to go outside domestic space and impose themselves within public space. We continued the project last year and next month will mark my fourth time there. What I appreciated the most is being able to come with my family, getting bigger throughout the years, and also meeting new family members from there too. It is a collective story which involve everyone from every age. Long term projects are so important in community work and almost political in our fast forward society too.
SK: I have always seen craft as a tool for social interaction, a safe space to be making as well as sharing. I work with a community craft organisation, The Exchange, where I run a community weaving project to make handwoven blinds for their community space in Erith. Over the course of the project, I worked with volunteers within timber and textiles workshops to design and build our own bespoke looms, made from reclaimed timber. We worked with over 25 volunteers to learn advanced weaving techniques, to collectively hand weave beautiful linen panels, that are then sewn together into window blinds. The final piece is shows the collective making of many hands, a true collaborative process. Weaving became a tool for building relationships, with the process itself being just as important as the finished piece. It is a powerful reminder that communal making can bring people together in ways that are both healing and empowering.
Working across various environments, how do you consider the relationship between your art and the audience’s experience in the public spaces you both work in?
SK: When working in public spaces, I’m conscious of how my work interacts with its environment and the people who experience it. I like to create pieces that invite interaction, whether through texture, scale, or the ability to contribute to the making process. I don’t want my work to just be observed, I want it to be participated in.
CD: Having my work in the public space is almost more sacred than having it exhibited in prestigious galleries, as it is offering art to everyone, and especially to the ones who did not think it was for them. Art is one of the best tool to help people opening their mind, dreaming and above all taking care of them. I truly believe in art having a big role in mental health.
Caroline, you were commissioned by the French Tennis Federation. A tennis court is obviously a very utilitarian space, so how do you relate to physical space when you design and execute your large-scale pieces?
CD: Making floor murals over the past three years have been very fun to do. I always have been keen of design objects, as I am fascinated by the double utility of practicality and the prospect of enjoying the beauty of them. For floor murals, it is the same.
Being able to play on it adds another dimension to my work and the way to enjoy it. Furthermore, it helps me to propose more immersive work. Getting bigger helps my smaller work too, as it is a proposition of zooming out. Changing scales is like switching languages, the intention can be the same but using different words and tools.
And Sara, how do the different weaving techniques you use – from workshops with the backstrap loom to the travelling Loom Room – help to engage participants and teach new skills?
SK: The back-strap loom is a wonderfully accessible tool—it’s portable, it doesn’t require much space and requires the participant to physically become part of the loom, directly connecting the maker to the tool and the surrounding environment, which is very special. The backstrap can be a beautifully social loom, where weavers tie themselves to the same tree, sitting and collectively weaving together. This tool was my introduction to weaving and has inspired every project since, including The Loom Room. The Loom Room is freestanding timber structure with 10 integrated frame looms, made in collaboration with carpenter, Chris Gabe. The structure brings craft to new audiences, allowing for participants to weave together, contribute to collaborative pieces and interact through the warp threads. Ultimately, I want to express that weaving IS a social practice, and it doesn’t require huge machinery and an expensive studio space. I want to encourage hands-on learning and make weaving an inclusive, approachable craft.
Finally, how do you envision the future of your respective practices, and what new techniques or themes are you eager to explore?
CD: My wish is to continue going bigger and bigger and more immersive. Being able to propose to the public immersive large-scale artworks and installations is for me the best medium for expliciting my researches and my artistic language. Going 3D is also a new direction in my work, with the use of large sculptures or frames which I design.
SK: I’d like to explore more ways of incorporating new fibres into my work, whilst also experimenting with a wider variety of textile practices. I am drawn to the idea of storytelling through collaborative craft. I want to make work that directly explores the process of making as a tool for healing and self-expression and to continuing to work with communities to create pieces that speak to shared experiences.
A huge thank you to Caroline and Sara. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Both artists are available to commission and please get in touch for lists of works for sale from the exhibition.
Love this answer:
"Colour and shape are part of my abstract language, like using letters and numbers to communicate within the world. Most of the time I don’t think about it at all, or analyse it, like language appears naturally when growing up. I follow an intuition of what is right and what is wrong, what needs to appear and what needs to be said. I could not live without this language, they are my tools to make my vision be understood."
Sometimes images really do speak more than words. October has been a month of mostly visual art shares and visual interviews over at Create Me Free in large part for this reason. And also because sometimes we need a space from the explaining in words.
I regularly make collage art, mostly just as part of my personal process of creativity and living a life. Lately I've been making weaving-style abstract images from the pages of Fiber Art Magazine.