What is this
The first time I discovered that I was a fan of the artist Sheila Hicks, it was at the Art Basel in Paris in 2023, through a textile work almost sculptural. Years went by and admiration and affection were confirmed, today it would be impossible to choose a favorite work. With time came more Basels, the MoMA, the last Biennale di Venezia, a book by the artist that I have at the center of my table, and up to the Art Open she has brought from Nebraska, thanks to her impeccable curatorship.
This weekend, we have something to celebrate, an individual exhibition by the artist opens next Tuesday, at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, with works created by the 92-year-old artist over the last six decades.
Sheila Hicks (Nebraska, Estados Unidos, 1934) is one of the main international references in the expansion of textile practices in contemporary art, which presents in her installations.
In her hands, the thread becomes line, surface, volume and structure, it is a lifetime of creation: small objects just enough to fit in the palm of your hand coexist with works that alter the scale of architecture.
Natural fibers, industrial materials and contemporary technologies integrate the same vocabulary, the color is born together with the matter and gains body through her way of seeing the world.
The diversity and saturation of her work doesn't come only from the colors, but from the different textures that the artist explores in her compositions.
I don't want to go do something I know how to do. I want to go do something I don't know how to do
I don't want a legacy. I just want to have fun while I'm here.
If you also like this content, we share here in an April 26 editorial, Great Women Artists, stories to listen to in your free time, with Katy Hessel, a podcast that brings Sheila Hicks among our three great female artists, who share their journey and creative process.
Sheila Hicks reflects on how textiles can be as powerful as sculpture or painting, and how the weaves and colors of her daily life inspire her work.
She tells her experience alongside masters like Josef and Anni Albers, as well as the travels through Latin America and the Middle East that influenced her artistic gestures and material choices.
While this is happening in São Paulo, we have the artist in our agenda until October 25.
Instituto Tomie Ohtake
'Sheila Hicks - What is this?'
August 28 to October 25, 2026
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