At the Bolívar Hall of the Embassy of Venezuela
from 18 May, 2005
From silk to Venezuelan fibres

Exhibition of textiles by
María Eugenia Dávila and Eduardo Portillo
Morera Studio
Taller Morera

Preview: Wednesday 18 May,
2005 6:30-8:30 pm
Open: May 19-30 10:30-6:30 pm. Sundays inclusive
Bolívar Hall of the Embassy of Venezuela 54 Grafton Way
London W1T 5DL
Information: 020 7388 5788

María Eugenia Dávila and Eduardo Portillo
are two Venezuelan artists who since 1983 have dedicated their work to silk and textiles. They studied silk and Sericulture in China in 1986, and went on to specialise in India between 1987-1988. Since then, their research has taken them world-wide. They have reproduced in Venezuela
the whole process of silk manufacture: they grow mulberry trees on the slopes of the Andes, having imported a few hundred plants twenty years ago; they rear the silk worms, obtain the threads, colour them with natural dyes, and design and weave artistic, domestic and fashion objects with silk and other fibres. They also brand and commercialise their products on site and in museum shops in the rest of Venezuela.
This activity takes place in a heavenly area, la Pedregosa in Mérida, where the couple Portillo Dávila founded the Taller Morera and the Veneseda silk farm, naming the Studio after the mulberry tree. In this entourage they experiment both with traditional looms and looms with computer assisted design units, thus incorporating into current
design the information they have collected in the past two decades. Veneseda functions permanently as a research centre, exchanging scientific and technical information about silk and weaving with other national and international institutions of the kind.
In 2001, in a journey along the Orinoco, María Eugenia and Eduardo found a wealth of fibres obtained from lianas, palms, pitas, barks and bromelias that reflected not only the natural diversity of Venezuela but complex indigenous cultures that still employ those fibres. Nowadays, the artists continue to study their harvesting and use, trying to incorporate the
main features of fibres such as moriche, curagua, chiquichique, cumare, marima, eneas, cascarón de plátano, hispopo, mamure, tirita and sisal in a contemporary textile language, and to fuse them with silk and other universal yarns.

Another line of exploration has taken them to retrace the steps of the specialists who studied the route of Indigo, drawing their own "blue" map in remote areas of China, India, Thailand, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela. Education is also an important activity on the Portillo Dávila agenda, as they dedicate much of their time to giving seminars on weaving and natural dyeing both
in Venezuela and abroad, and have collaborated in sericulture development projects in several countries, winning awards and prizes along the way.

Venezuela is a country of a highly contrasting and prodigal nature. Its jungles, plains and mountains harbour the syncretism that often surprises us in the cultural expressions of its people. This exhibition reflects this. There are pieces of different formats, woven with silk produced in the Morera Studio, which exploit the use of colour, texture and structure proper of the trade; and which show the advances reached in intensive searches across the world for silk and travel around Venezuela. There are also silk weaves inspired by the iconography of the Yekuana people from the Venezuelan Amazon, and pieces where silk mingles with cotton and wool to explore the extraordinary aesthetic qualities of native vegetable fibres. In other works, there is an obvious celebration of colour in silk and manmade fibres dyed with natural extracts found in the country.

As you leave the city of Mérida towards the high mountains, the Páramo, you pass in front of the Morera Studio. Further up, you discover magnificent views, a mixture of ancient agriculture and wild nature. Neat villages of whitewashed houses, a central square with its church and inn, a fresh and even cold climate at the top, where snow is permanent. Although cloud and mist are often part of the horizon, sunshine is not scarce in the Andean landscape, bringing out its colours and giving the whole area one of the best climates in the world.