Juana Gomez @ Michael Hoppen Gallery

Chilean artist Juana Gómez’s hand embroidered photographic canvases combine the spheres of scientific exploration with ancestral tradition. Weaving complex scientific and mythological patterns onto images of both her own and her daughters’ bodies, her work is interested in placing mankind within a broader context of interconnectivity. Rather than seeing us as individuals, dethatched from one another and the world around us, Gómez positions us as part of an ancient chain that goes back to the origin of life: a combination of patterns, molecules and small organisms.
The title of the exhibition Distaff defines both the matrilineal branch of a family, and also the ‘domestic life,’ describing a tool that bears the same name used for manually spinning fleece. Both meanings are relevant to Gómez’s work, as she utilises weaving and embroidery to explore the themes of genealogy, mythology and biology within her own female lineage.