Francesca Piñol
Francesca Piñol was Born in 1959, in Puigverd de Lleida, she currently lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.
She graduated in Anthropology from the University of Barcelona (UB) in 1995 and holds an MA in Textile Design by the Catalonian Polytecnic University (UPC). She extended studies with stages abroad: at the Skolen for Brugskunst (School of Design) of Copenhagen in 1989 and at the CIETA (International d'Etude Centers des Textiles Anciens) of Lyon in 1994 and 95. She has participated in several artist residencies such as Contextile in Guimaraes, Portugal in 2012, as well as in the Arctic Circle 2015 (fifteenth expedition).
Francesca was fascinated by the way that fibers interweave and what is born from their crossing. The combinations of threads -warp and weft-, colors, textures, shapes and symbols, are multiple possibilities. By creating a rhythm, we can compose a text that gives voice in the universe that emerges from the interior world to satisfy the human spirit through the textile word.
Although it combines various techniques, materials and textures, weaving is the most used technique with the incorporation of jacquard digital technology and the color obtained from natural dyeing with materials from the environment, making unique pieces or short series.
She graduated in Anthropology from the University of Barcelona (UB) in 1995 and holds an MA in Textile Design by the Catalonian Polytecnic University (UPC). She extended studies with stages abroad: at the Skolen for Brugskunst (School of Design) of Copenhagen in 1989 and at the CIETA (International d'Etude Centers des Textiles Anciens) of Lyon in 1994 and 95. She has participated in several artist residencies such as Contextile in Guimaraes, Portugal in 2012, as well as in the Arctic Circle 2015 (fifteenth expedition).
Francesca was fascinated by the way that fibers interweave and what is born from their crossing. The combinations of threads -warp and weft-, colors, textures, shapes and symbols, are multiple possibilities. By creating a rhythm, we can compose a text that gives voice in the universe that emerges from the interior world to satisfy the human spirit through the textile word.
Although it combines various techniques, materials and textures, weaving is the most used technique with the incorporation of jacquard digital technology and the color obtained from natural dyeing with materials from the environment, making unique pieces or short series.
1. MARQUES D'AIGUA
"Marques d’aigua" is made up of eight pieces.
Started during the expedition in the Arctic, a series of photographs have been taken of the different tracks or traces of the water, with which a texture and color file of the territory has been created. In each one of them, the movement of water is reflected, either as a series of solidified molecules at a certain stage, or as the traces left by its movement or oscillation on a surface, or as the landscape determined by its architectural magnificence.
Almost all of them have the place name where the photograph was taken, except in some pieces such as this one TRACES that includes the marks of 4 different spaces.
These woven images evoke the lived landscapes, they are a recognition of nature, wanting to transfer part of the spiritual essence that is collected so well when we use textile materials and slow techniques, that lead you to no time, where contemplation helps you to reconnect with nature, in these moments when we have to look at nature again, love and give her again the importance she has, remembering that we are with her.
"Marques d’aigua" is made up of eight pieces.
Started during the expedition in the Arctic, a series of photographs have been taken of the different tracks or traces of the water, with which a texture and color file of the territory has been created. In each one of them, the movement of water is reflected, either as a series of solidified molecules at a certain stage, or as the traces left by its movement or oscillation on a surface, or as the landscape determined by its architectural magnificence.
Almost all of them have the place name where the photograph was taken, except in some pieces such as this one TRACES that includes the marks of 4 different spaces.
These woven images evoke the lived landscapes, they are a recognition of nature, wanting to transfer part of the spiritual essence that is collected so well when we use textile materials and slow techniques, that lead you to no time, where contemplation helps you to reconnect with nature, in these moments when we have to look at nature again, love and give her again the importance she has, remembering that we are with her.
Details of TRACES SEA, below
2. THE FABRIC OF THOUGHTS.
Tapestries depicting neuronal landscapes of the mammalian circuits of smell, arising from a collaboration between professionals of arts and science, Francesca Piñol Torrent, Laboratori textil, and Carles Bosch Piñol from The Francis Crick Institute, London.
Tapestries depicting neuronal landscapes of the mammalian circuits of smell, arising from a collaboration between professionals of arts and science, Francesca Piñol Torrent, Laboratori textil, and Carles Bosch Piñol from The Francis Crick Institute, London.
Recognising an odour
Odours are first encoded in the brain in a highly modular and compact structure: the glomerular column. We aim to better understand how the brain recognises odours. We approach this challenge by imaging in 3D tissue landscapes that contain these glomeruli, so neurons can be followed and traced. We employ automated serial block-face scanning electron microscopy (SBEM) combined with other imaging modalities to target specific locations in the brain. Some images that illustrate our most recent ongoing experiments were adapted so they could be transferred efficiently into a loom.
We wove fabrics depicting these neuronal landscapes using a Jacquard manual loom with digital thread control. Geometrical patterns appear at different scales – ranging from microns to the millimetre. Some features were woven with fluorescent threads, allowing light and electron microscopy images to overlap in the tapestry.
Taken together, through a crosstalk between art and neuroscience we are displaying some hidden gems of the mammalian brain.
Awards:
Honorable mention at the international competition Art of Neuroscience 2018
Art Meets Science in Francesca's Tapestries
Odours are first encoded in the brain in a highly modular and compact structure: the glomerular column. We aim to better understand how the brain recognises odours. We approach this challenge by imaging in 3D tissue landscapes that contain these glomeruli, so neurons can be followed and traced. We employ automated serial block-face scanning electron microscopy (SBEM) combined with other imaging modalities to target specific locations in the brain. Some images that illustrate our most recent ongoing experiments were adapted so they could be transferred efficiently into a loom.
We wove fabrics depicting these neuronal landscapes using a Jacquard manual loom with digital thread control. Geometrical patterns appear at different scales – ranging from microns to the millimetre. Some features were woven with fluorescent threads, allowing light and electron microscopy images to overlap in the tapestry.
Taken together, through a crosstalk between art and neuroscience we are displaying some hidden gems of the mammalian brain.
Awards:
Honorable mention at the international competition Art of Neuroscience 2018
Art Meets Science in Francesca's Tapestries
3. MUDABLE
The circumstances of contemporary life require the development of mutation strategies that allow them to adapt to new realities and environments. Changes in skin, identities, attitudes to respond to new forms of integration and sustainability.
The circumstances of contemporary life require the development of mutation strategies that allow them to adapt to new realities and environments. Changes in skin, identities, attitudes to respond to new forms of integration and sustainability.
WHITE SILENCE
Two aspects have always inspired my fascination for the Arctic: color and sound. Ever since first learning about the Inuit people, I have been captivated by the sheer number of names that they have for the color white, which changes depending on the quality of any given day’s fallen snow. And the sounds above all, the Arctic’s characteristic silence, which allows those who experience it to tune into the earth’s most primordial sounds.
The Arctic: a place where nature has remained in an authentic, powerful, and pure state, where sky and earth meet, where the silent force of possibility reveals itself, a place where aesthetic manifestations of sound and color reach an awe-inspiring intensity, a place that transports the viewer to the border between heaven and earth, and where the artistic gaze can bring this reality to life.
The Arctic: white silence that shows the way towards one’s own inner landscapes.
Action: WEAVING SPACES: THE ARCTIC WHITE SILENCE
In front of the Juli Bukta glacier, the yarns dyed with seaweed are woven, each color a ribbon.
On the arctic beach they move with the water, play, listen to the sound of the ocean and the glacier.
Position: Fjortende Juli Bukta , 79º 02 26 N, 11º 49 54 E, 15th October 2015
Two aspects have always inspired my fascination for the Arctic: color and sound. Ever since first learning about the Inuit people, I have been captivated by the sheer number of names that they have for the color white, which changes depending on the quality of any given day’s fallen snow. And the sounds above all, the Arctic’s characteristic silence, which allows those who experience it to tune into the earth’s most primordial sounds.
The Arctic: a place where nature has remained in an authentic, powerful, and pure state, where sky and earth meet, where the silent force of possibility reveals itself, a place where aesthetic manifestations of sound and color reach an awe-inspiring intensity, a place that transports the viewer to the border between heaven and earth, and where the artistic gaze can bring this reality to life.
The Arctic: white silence that shows the way towards one’s own inner landscapes.
Action: WEAVING SPACES: THE ARCTIC WHITE SILENCE
In front of the Juli Bukta glacier, the yarns dyed with seaweed are woven, each color a ribbon.
On the arctic beach they move with the water, play, listen to the sound of the ocean and the glacier.
Position: Fjortende Juli Bukta , 79º 02 26 N, 11º 49 54 E, 15th October 2015