Insider

Caroline Achaintre’s striking wall hangings are made from hand-tufted wool. Her process involves pulling the material through the canvas from behind: a method which she likens to painting in wool. The length, texture and colour of each thread takes on the qualities of expressionist brushwork. The abstract forms of Insider come together to create an angular geometric face, with black striped patterning softened by the full pout of pink lips and bright blue eyes. Born in France, Achaintre cites German Expressionism and post-war British sculpture as influences on her work: movements known for their raw aesthetics which conveyed the trauma of a wartime generation. She also draws upon early 20th-century Primitivism as practised by artists such as Picasso, who incorporated imagery from tribal cultures into his work. Achaintre is interested in these periods because they present junctures between the ancient and modern, the psychological and physical, exoticism and technology. ‘My processes utilise methods associated with the applied arts’, she says. ‘I make those choices not because of my interest in craft, but for their intense, subjective quality … Not knowing the outcome I have to plunge into the process. Interested in the field between abstraction and figuration I try to stay in the uncomfortable middle ground, the in-between.’