Tonico Lemos Auad

Brazilian artist Tonico Lemos continues his long-standing exploration of traditional craft by investigating themes of architecture, landscape and human interaction. Through everyday materials such as linen, wool, stone and wood, the viewer is treated to a series of new textile reliefs, sculptures and site-specific installations.Auad’s unique way of working subverts traditional techniques such as stitch work, woodcarving and stonemasonry and opens up new possibilities in drawing, weaving, sculpture and installation. One can immediately recognise his work for its extraordinary deftness of touch and the way it bridges the modern and
contemporary. Through collaborations with a range of specialised makers, Auad explores the crossover between craft, skill, tradition and cultural inheritance.

New textile works in shades of white, red and black begin as small handstitched rectangles, each with a unique combination of stitches and interwoven threads of wool, linen, cotton, paper and silk. Together they become a single, organic patchwork which retains signs of the artist’s hand. This labour-intensive technique creates a rich idiosyncratic surface study.