Tristan Hoare is delighted to present Emotional Fields, an exhibition of large scale contemporary tapestries by Carolina Mazzolari. In her first UK solo exhibition Mazzolari presents striking hand-embroidered textiles inspired by Kurt Lewin’s space diagrams and Carl Gustav Jung’s theories on the collective unconscious.

These ideas are manifested as woven emotional maps, guiding the viewer through abstract states which are described in cotton, silk and wool thread embroidered onto an unprimed linen with her distinctive herringbone stitch technique. In each map there is a sense of intimacy as the artist has physically interacted with the fabrics over many hundreds of hours. The resulting maps are reminiscent of mandalas where love, hesitation, loss, grief and struggle are described in personal and universal language, suggesting a deeper human pattern.

The exhibition is divided into three rooms, beginning with a video installation Emosphere in Room 1. This work showcases silver pigment reacting with spirit, resembling the mind’s behaviour during an emotional reaction. An emotion is difficult to define, it is both chemical and spiritual, tangible and invisible; so, this first room acts an introduction to the themes contained in Mazzolari’s textiles and explored in the exhibition.

Room 2 contains tapestries rich in symbolism, that portray archetypal figures and motifs, all of which embody universal traits and emotions inherent throughout humanity. In the final room (3), Mazzolari shifts from universal symbols to more personal interpretations. These abstract maps are the result of Mazzolari’s quest to represent elusive states of being – resulting in Emotional Fields.

For this exhibition, which runs throughout Frieze London 2019, the artist worked closely with Fine Cell Work, a non-profit organisation collaborating with UK prisoners and ex-prisoners.