Aurora Pellizzi currently lives and works in Mexico City. Daughter of anthropologists, she was born in 1983 in Mexico City and grew up between New York and Cuernavaca. She studied art at Cooper Union School (BFA, 2010) and art history at New York University (BFA, 2005).

Pellizzi’s work combines formal precepts of painting and sculpture with craft techniques. Her practice is informed by pre-industrial textile processes and materials, from natural dyeing to back-strap loom weaving. Technical constraints give way to textural, dimensional shapes and forms. Fiber is used both as a pictorial field and as the embodiment of the subject it represents.

She has exhibited in Austria, Belgium, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including exhibitions at the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City, the Museo de Arte Maya in Cancun, the Museo de Artes Populares of Mexico in Mexico City, and forthcoming at the Museum of the City of Queretaro and the Mexican Institute in Madrid (2023).

My work playfully combines formal concepts of painting and sculpture – such as abstraction, perspective, figure, and ground – with traditional textile techniques and practices – most notably weaving and natural dyeing. Humor acts as a catalyst dissipating the traditionally ascribed divide between craft and art.

In my work I often use natural infusions of indigo, brazilwood, cochineal, avocado pits, and Aztec marigold to produce my color palette. Variations of tone and hue derive from the source’s natural composition and from the particular PH of each dye recipe. Treated as a material in and of itself and not as an external attribute or coating, the resulting colors are deeply saturated and unusual, especially in our post-industrial, digital age.

During my residency at MOMENTUM-LAGOS, I transposed my studio practice from San Miguel Chapultepec in Mexico City to Kreuzberg in Berlin. Employing many of the same processes I use at home: weaving, felting and natural dyeing – I adapted these practices to local sources, materials and workshops in the area surrounding the Residency Studio within the historical Kunstquartier Bethanien Art Center. Throughout the Residency, I have been furthering my engagement with locally sourced materials and craft communities.

Working within the BBK Print Workshop at Kunstquartier Bethanien, I extended my use of natural dyes by applying them to the silk-screen process. The result is a series of works on paper and fabric in different hues of color (from yellow, to pink, brown, and teal) – obtained by altering the PH of a dye liqueur I extracted from Rhubarb root. Rhubarb, native to Siberia and Alaska, was introduced to Europe in the 1600s as a medicinal plant for its healing properties. It is particularly suited to northern countries for its ability to withstand winter frosts. It is now a ubiquitous ingredient in dishes, beverages, and deserts in Germany.

The print edition references the optical illusion known as Rubin´s Vase. The image used in psychology tests typically depicts either a cup or two faces kissing; depending on the viewers own interpretation and ´projection.´ In art it is referred to as a figure/ground relation. In these rhubarb tinted prints, profiled and frontal female torsos combine, separate and merge back together. The edges of one define the shape of the other. The process entailed printing a series of transparent acid and base layers onto paper. The final flush of dye reveals the image – as the dye reacts to the invisible inks ¬ the figures emerge.