Familiarity to the image
TextileArtist.org: What initially captured your imagination about textile art?
Ana Teresa Barboza: Working with my hands, it’s something I’ve always done since childhood… and the incredible images that textiles can produce. I feel the fabric gives familiarity to the image, it pulls you in to stop and admire the details.
What or who were your early influences and how has your life/upbringing influenced your work?
Seeing my grandmother as a child making all these handmade pieces. When I was at her home she was always embroidering or weaving or sewing on the sewing machine.
What was your route to becoming an artist? (Formal training or another pathway?)
I studied painting for six years at the art faculty in the Catholic University of Peru PUCP. It is a school with modernist principles, focusing more on the formal aspect of the work; line, color, composition.
Whilst there I discovered that not all art was like that, and that the school lessons had many empty fields that you must fill yourself, with the things you’re interested in. I found artists like Annette Messager, Ghada Amer, Tracy Emin, Louise Bourgeois, and many other artists who use different techniques and different ways of thinking to make art. After college I started designing clothes to earn some money and at the same time continued to make art. With clothes I could learn about fabrics and its construction, which also influences my work.