Visual artist Carmen M. Castañeda develops a distinctive practice of embroidery at the crossroads between traditional craftsmanship and contemporary creation. She improved her skills in Paris at the École Lesage, where she mastered hand-embroidery techniques applied to Haute Couture. This discipline became the foundation of her artistic language, which she inscribes within a conceptual and abstract framework.
Through an intimate reflection on time, she decontextualizes couture embroidery to situate it within a plastic field where matter, rhythm, and process stand in contrast to today’s industrial pace. Her approach is based on the repetition of gesture, the imprint of the body, and the memory of movement: she embroiders on the reverse side of the canvas, without seeing the result, allowing the thread, the rhythm of the needle, and unpredictability to guide the creation.
Her work, marked by repetition, patience and impermanence, lies on the border between craftsmanship, experimentation and contemporary art.