Untitled 1 and 2 Arraiolos carpet, 2026
w120 x h180 (each)
About the work:
These two carpets emerge from a return to drawings I made during my adolescence. As a teenager, I sketched carpet-like patterns alongside animals, plants, and imaginary figures. At the time, these images were not made with artistic intention; they were private gestures, ways of imagining a world beyond the limits of my immediate surroundings.
Years later, encountering traditional Arraiolos carpet designs prompted me to revisit these early marks. Their ornamental language, shaped by Persian, Syrian, Turkish, and Islamic visual traditions, resonated with my own layered background.
By translating childhood drawings into woven form, I approach memory as material that can be reworked. Figures are placed in relation to animals and interlaced with plant motifs, forming connected compositions. The slow, tactile process of carpet-making transforms what were once quick, unconsidered sketches into durational acts of care.
The works acknowledge the innocence of their origins while allowing new meanings to surface through craft, time, and distance. In this process, the carpets function as both personal archives and speculative maps — weaving together past and present, private memory and inherited visual traditions, into a renewed narrative of belonging.
© 2025 by Mustafa Boga