Meet Consuelo
I am an artist and maker based in rural Hampshire, and my work explores what it means to create using traditional craft skills like net-making, weaving, bookbinding and gilding.
I understand making as a thoughtful, embodied dialogue with materials, where both maker and matter play active roles. I often work with natural fibres, such as linen, sisal, or nettle string, as well as rope, paper, thorny twigs, bones and plaster, many found on daily walks, alongside found objects like rusting hand tools, steel wire, and sash window counterweights. Using handmade cordage and nets crafted from a variety of strings, I assemble sculptures and wall-mounted works that celebrate the history and memories held by orphaned tools and objects displaced from their original context. Alongside these, my prints and works on paper - often presented in book form - reflect my ongoing fascination with human ingenuity and the ubiquitous presence of string throughout history.
My works, spanning sculpture, installation, textiles, prints, and artist books, are always in a state of becoming. I reimagine old hand tools and found objects, allowing their histories to shape the narrative. Form is always temporary, allowing for the possibility of change, and seeks neither perfection nor an end.
I find joy in creating small sculptures, as the tactile interaction with materials fosters a deep, intuitive connection to the creative process. I delight in the unique personality of each material – yarn, paper, wire, wood or metal - and in learning to speak the language of each as I shape it. There is a profound satisfaction in the immediacy of feeling textures, weight, and resistance during the act of making. Navigating the boundaries of form, I adapt my ideas to the physical reality of the medium. This hands-on engagement allows a rhythm between intent and discovery, where each twist and curve reveal something unexpected. Through my practice, I aim to capture moments of contentment, those fleeting flashes of enchantment that invite us to see the world with wonder. I seek to celebrate those immersive moments where we feel fully present yet connected to something other.
