Élodie Antoine takes traditional lace and subverts the stereotypes by creating industrial images and atypical constructions.
Élodie Antoine’s interest in textiles and using them in her art work stems from her own family background. It was her father that taught her to knit. She fell in love with lacemaking as a craft and wanted to use it in her work.
Antoine says “I thought about subjects that might work with that technique and I chose elements of the industrial world that are very finely wrought and could have something in common with lace, visually.
“What interested me was the clash, the contradiction between a technique that is seen as feminine, fragile, and miniature and a gigantic, solid subject in a rather masculine world.
Antoine rejects the traditional white lace romantic floral patterns and instead creates beautiful industrial landscapes: Although the handwork of lacemaking has largely been done and used by women over history, Élodie makes sure that her visual opposes this through its masculine subject. Industrial buildings, transmission towers or fence wires replace the traditional lace image…
Scattered on the table, beside a box of bobbins, are drawings of oil rigs, dotted at regular intervals with the needle holes that served as the basis for her pieces of lace.
On the walls, you can see the results: a series of nuclear power plant cooling towers, patiently created using black threads, which are densely interwoven at the top, like smoke. Or pubic hair.
These pieces are such a far cry from the traditional expectation of what lace can be, and the contrast between the gentility of the form and the brutal scale of the subject is perfect.
In the same way that Pierre Fouche‘s work challenges the norm, Élodie’s artistry deftly delivers a big impact by the simple choice of powerful landscapes.
Élodie Antoine is not only transforming your perceptions of lace, her work is equally brilliant across a range of installation mediums. Take time to spin through her website and her Instagram and you’ll see what we mean.
