OVERVIEW

Hellen Ascoli

Liste Year

Year of Birth

Country of Birth

Presented by

2021

1984

Guatemala

Proyectos Ultravioleta

Hellen Ascoli (Guatemala City, 1984) completed her MFA in Sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012, and is an artist, weaver, and educator; although these first three words are named separately to convey the area of discourse that Ascoli engages with, it could also just say “Weaver” a word that encompasses the other two.


She is currently presenting her first solo museum show 'Cien Tierras' at the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) in Cincinnati, and has had solo and two-person exhibitions at Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City, Guatemala; Con ...

Hellen Ascoli’s multidisciplinary approach to art-making derives from an active engagement with weaving, movement, listening, and writing, which she applies to an exploration of the political relationship between body, object, and environment. Working primarily with the backstrap loom—a tool that attaches to the body of its user and to the space in which they are working—Ascoli generates ideas and experiences that are rooted in place, and which are therefore contextual and relational. “Each weave is intimately related to the body it harnesses,” she writes. “Its warp is the width of my hips, its lengt ...

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Liste Year

Year of Birth

Country of Birth

Presented by

2020

1984

Guatemala

Proyectos Ultravioleta

Hellen Ascoli (Guatemala City, 1984) weaves on the back strap loom to connect body / tool / material / site.

Her work looks at embodied practices and material culture, as a way to understand her surroundings.

The textiles of Mayan women of Guatemala and Southern Mexico forefront the symbolic to preserve their histories and cosmovision of the world around them. Ascoli is interested in echoing and highlighting the relationship of body / tool / material / site to create a sensorial experience.

Abrazo (Embrace) is an attempt to formally and physically convey the sensation of an embrace; to feel wrapped around, and be held, by the other.

  • Detail of Abrazo (Embrace).
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Using the poem (above) as a starting point Touch (O)Ver considers how Western society values seeing over feeling.

These same hierarchies are often at play within our internal power dynamics. However, by playing with the words - through text and textile - Ascoli is able to find a physical way of questioning and reorganizing this logic, in hopes of understanding why certain senses internally overpower others.

Hellen Ascoli Back strap loom working 2
Portrait of the artist in her studio, weaving on the back strap loom.

Hellen Ascoli completed her MFA in Sculpture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012, and is an artist, weaver, and educator; although these first three words are named separately to convey the area of discourse that Ascoli engages with, it could also just say “Weaver” a word that encompasses the other two.


She has had solo and two person exhibitions at Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City, Guatemala; Conduit Gallery, Houston, Texas; and Concepción 41, Antigua, Guatemala. Additionally, she has and participated in numerous group exhibitions including < ...