ELKE HULSE
TAPESTRY ART
“Hülse is an artist, tapestry maker, educator, and researcher - one of the few, if not the only one in Brazil, who academically researches, publishes on, and produces contemporary tapestry. She has a bachelor's and a master's degree in visual arts, with an emphasis on Theory and History of Art, a field that allows her to study and disseminate about tapestry making, which is viewed in our country as an artisanal technique, without regard to its past and its importance in the unfolding of art history, and more importantly, its infinite possibilities of artistic expression, fully inserted in the complex scenario of contemporary art. Elke Otte Hülse has a fundamental role in the production and dissemination of tapestry as an art and she has been developing it with primacy, as one of the most expressive and recognized Brazilian artists who work with this technique, and she has been representing our country in artistic, academic and cultural events around the world."
Luciane Ruschel Nascimento Garcez and Sandra Makowiecky, excerpt from the text Elke Otte Hülse: ancestral narratives and expanded techniques in tapestry, published in Palíndromo Magazine, 2020 [See more]
"To weave a tapestry is to be continuously learning and experimenting and especially using time as an ally. Each new cartoon fixed under the warp is a technical exercise from start to finish.
The cartoon can be a drawing, a photo, or any artistic creation used as a reference for the weaver in the execution of the weft. Each cartoon requires a specific warp to enhance the proposed design. After that, the weaver chooses the materials and colors with which to execute the weft.
It is important to remember that a tapestry follows one direction, it starts on one side and ends on the opposite end. In this way figure and background have the same value; they are woven together. This specific language, from the translation of a cartoon to the discontinuous weft, we call tapestry."
Elke Hülse