cc-tapis presents the new rugs of the Feathers collection and the Gesture project
Gesture Project
a collective of five collections
“Gesture on canvas,” opined art historian Harold Rosenberg in a 1952 essay in ArtNews magazine, “was a gesture of liberation.” Rosenberg was marvelling at a new breed of artists bubbling up in bowels of Manhattan at the time, whose work was the product of movement and force: the action painters. In downtown studios and factory lofts, they were discovering an entirely new language of expression; one of drips and slashes, violence and gravity. It was a di erent way of seeing art, less concerned with form and composition, more so act of making itself.
For their latest collection, cc-tapis explores gesture as the root of artistic expression. From small domestic tasks to naive scrawling, each action is considered with a similar weight. A smear of frothy soap swiped across a windowpane is seen with the same wonder as paint splashed across canvas and the furtive childlike scribbles of crayon on pristine walls could very well be the making of a masterpiece. Five designers — Patricia Urquiola, Sabine Marcelis, Philippe Malouin, Mae Engelgeer and Yuri Himuro – meditate on gesture’s meaning and investigate how the simple movement of hands and tools can lead their creative process.
The results range from delicate gradients inspired by brushstrokes to the imperfect assemblage of spontaneous collages, to the simple act of cutting into woven cloth. In response to the designers’ creativity, cc-tapis, led by art director Daniele Lora, have developed new techniques that bring these gestures to life. Ways of shaping and dying wool, previously unexplored methods of weaving and the introduction of novel materials within the hand-knotted rugs — capturing in wool, linen and silk the artists’ inimitable gesture.
The Feathers Collection
by Maarten De Ceulaer
In 2020 the fluttery plumage of cc-tapis’ Feathers Collection will include 3 new species: Feathers Rectangular, Feathers Freeform big and Feathers Runner. A flock of unique rugs which were born from Maarten De Ceulaers affinity for birds.
The works of John James Audubon and John Gould have regularly served as a source of inspiration to De Ceulaer who pairs and clips digital scans together, often tweaking and morphing them into further abstraction. Shapes, colors, and textures are rearranged into enchanting and absorbing compositions.
The collages are then translated into rich and sophisticated rugs, hand-knotted in Himalayan wool and silk. To achieve the high level of detail in De Ceulaers collages and to give life to the digital artworks, the highest quality of Tibetan handknotting is used with approximately 250.000 individual knots per square meter. Different levels of pile-height are hand-cut to create a sense of depth, emphasizing the feathers’ shapes giving the collection a fine and rich texture.
