Per filo e per segno

At the Giustini/Stagetti gallery in Rome until 16 January, Allegra Hicks shows rugs and tapestries with a dimension that is not fully appreciable by reasoning alone.

In some cultural ambits, especially in Italy, defining a work as “decorative” did not have a very positive connotation for decades. If then the word was associated with a soft material whose destination was the domestic interior, it took on a decidedly derogatory meaning.

The reasons for this may be many, including our rationalist heritage, and the barrier between major arts and minor arts erected by a long historiographical tradition that certain groups would not like to see demolished. The point is, not until today, after many years of battle against superfluous ornament, a new era of decoration is gaining ground in all of contemporary design.

Allegra Hicks, Sunflower, 2016. Hand-embroidered wool, chain stitched, 10 pieces

Allegra Hicks, Anemonies, 2016. Hand-embroidered wool, chain stitched, 10 pieces

Allegra Hicks, Anemonies, 2016. Hand-embroidered wool, chain stitched, 10 pieces

Allegra Hicks, Roman View, Hand embroidered cotton on silk, unique piece

Allegra Hicks, Roman Fireworks, 2016. Hand-knotted wool, 150 knots, 10 pieces

Allegra Hicks, Pines, 2016. Hand embroidered cotton on silk, unique piece

Being decorative now is neither a right flaunted out of ideological reaction like happened in the 1980s nor the exclusive prerogative of luxury living. Ornamentation is no longer a crime, and using it is less connected to cerebral and experimental spheres, and decidedly more to emotional ones. Decoration is returning to its original nature as aesthetic enjoyment, formal harmony and pleasingness. In this sense, Allegra Hicks’ textile works are emblematic for a liberation of decorative form that in some design sectors has not been so excluded, and to the contrary much appreciated and nurtured. But let us take a step backward.

Allegra Hicks is a designer with an international and cosmopolitan background. Born in Turin in 1963, she studied design in Milan. She immediately understood that Italy lives in a paradox, being the homeland of some of the highest forms of craftsmanship, yet its universities treat interior design as a second-rate discipline. So she travelled to complete her training and indulged in her attraction for the “decorative arts”. She studied the technique of frescoes and trompe l’oeil in Brussels, and painting in New York. Then she moved to London, which became her adoptive city where she now works as a designer. “The thing I have always loved about England,” she says, “is its great tolerance for diversity. London is not like Milan, where everybody conforms to a political type of fashion.”

A few years after moving to London, she created her own brand, opened a shop in the city and broadened her merchandise from only textiles to include furniture, objects and fashion. Today she works on customised projects for clients who leave her plenty of leeway. She also works for an e-commerce label of democratic design called Made.com, one of the most interesting online shopping sites in recent years. Hicks works by ceaselessly drawing patterns with a black marker in a notebook. It is her first and last gesture of the day, almost a daily ritual. “It’s a question of vocabulary. By drawing, I want to see if my alphabet functions. Then I transfer it to watercolours and add colour.” Explaining the sense of this first fundamental step, she shares a childhood memory of seeing a recording of Picasso drawing with a continuous line. The figure finds its reason for existing in the lines, but in the colours of the paints it takes on a soul. Drawing patterns, much like embroidering or weaving, is a practice of equilibrium between mind, eye and hand.

Allegra Hicks, Roman View, Hand embroidered cotton on silk, unique piece

Allegra Hicks, Anemonies, 2016. Hand-embroidered wool, chain stitched, 10 pieces

Allegra Hicks, Anemonies, 2016. Hand-embroidered wool, chain stitched, 10 pieces

Allegra Hicks, Sunflower, 2016. Hand-embroidered wool, chain stitched, 10 pieces

Allegra Hicks, Sunflower, 2016. Hand-embroidered wool, chain stitched, 10 pieces

Her emotive intelligence is channelled by reiteration and discipline. When asked where she finds her most profound inspiration, we expect her to refer to nature. Instead, she answers, “In silence.” She adds that the practice of drawing is very similar and close to meditation, and silence is an effective way to clear the inner mind of external images and distractions. If she doesn’t practice this type of emptying action, she is unable to see and gather suggestions. Hicks’ monograph An Eye for Design (2010) is one big collection of photos similar to what would later be known as Instagram. It proves her dedication to juxtaposing and connecting images before a social network could stamp it with approval.

At the Giustini/Stagetti gallery in Rome, she is presenting “Per filo e per segno”, an installation-type display of recent work and a few pieces dedicated to the city. The two rooms offer a twofold interpretation. In one, rugs with warm, deep and enveloping colours are a hymn to Rome’s magnificence. In the other, a clean setting of springlike, fresh and watery tones is completed by larges tapestries based on Rome’s pine trees and 18th-century landscape paintings. They are references from historical culture and memory moving toward profoundly visceral elements. Colour is a strong guide, and defies all exclusively rational definitions. Rivers of literature have attempted to codify colour scientifically, finally surrendering to its indescribability, its experiential nature and live materiality. Allegra Hicks’ textiles live the same destiny as the colour that animates them. They create a dimension that is not fully appreciable or describable by reasoning alone.

Her work migrates toward faraway lands that are surely the ones of her travel experiences, but they are also interior dimensions that involve our primary need for beauty and the anthropology of aesthetics. So what is decoration today? “Decoration is free design, the possibility to be eclectic, and not be cramped by schemes,” she says. “The new generations have a desire to be decorative without being afraid of being tortured for it!” Indeed, we need to liberate our minds of many thoughts in order to immerse in this pure enjoyment without prejudice or explanation-related anxiety.

until 16 January 2017
Allegra Hicks. Per filo e per segno
Giustini / Stagetti Galleria O. Roma
via dell’Arancio 46/49, Rome

Per filo e per segno

At the Giustini/Stagetti gallery in Rome until 16 January, Allegra Hicks shows rugs and tapestries with a dimension that is not fully appreciable by reasoning alone.

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