A Voyageuse between Brazil and Peru: Hélène, founder of Apara, art tapestry

Félicie

3 days ago

3 min read

From classical music to art tapestries, from Brazil to Peru, Hélène created Apara, a studio where contemporary artists and artisan weavers work hand in hand. A beautiful meeting of art, travel and craftsmanship, three worlds close to my heart at Voyageuses.

From classical music to art tapestries

Born into an Austrian-Italian family, Hélène grew up in Paris surrounded by classical music and opera. After studying musicology and management, she began her career in the Paris music industry, helping artists and composers produce their recordings.

It was with her Brazilian partner that she discovered Brazilian tapestries from the 1950s to the 1970s and fell in love with this craft. Fascinated by the way threads and colours can give a drawing or a painting a new dimension, she came up with the idea of bringing contemporary artists and artisan weavers together.

She then founded Apara, an art tapestry studio based between France and Brazil, where she now lives.

Ateliers de tissage au Perou pour apara
Helene et les tapisseries d'art Apara
artisan tisserand du Perou pour Apara

Apara, between artists and artisans: Elvia Paucar, weaver from the Peruvian Andes

What I particularly love about Hélène’s approach is the place she gives to traditional skills and to the people who keep them alive.

Each tapestry is born from a collaboration between an artist, who imagines the original work, and an artisan weaver, who reinterprets it with their hands, techniques and sensitivity.

Among these artisans is Elvia Paucar, from San Pedro de Cajas, a village in the Peruvian Andes known for its textile tradition. Trained by her parents from childhood, she masters every stage of the process, from selecting the wool to natural dyeing and weaving on a hand loom. The tapestries are handmade in limited editions, using hand-dyed wool. The result: unique pieces, somewhere between artwork and decorative object, as if a drawing could travel from one country to another, pass through different hands and become a textile work without losing the spirit of the artist who imagined it.

tapisserie-olhando-para-o-sol-sancinetti.jpg
Tapisserie murale Faixa Vermelha d'Eduardo Sancinetti, série Selva Apara
Tapisserie d'art Apara Eduardo Sancinetti
Edition limitées Apara Tapisseries d'art

Eduardo Sancinetti: Brazilian nature in tapestry

Among the artists Hélène works with is Eduardo Sancinetti, a Brazilian visual artist whose work explores the relationship between people and nature through simplified shapes, bold colours and very graphic compositions.

I chose to present two of his works at Voyageuses: Olhando para o Sol (“Looking at the Sun”) and Faixa Vermelha (“Red Band”). Two tapestries handwoven by Elvia Paucar in Peru, in hand-dyed sheep’s wool, each in an edition of only ten.

I especially love their colour palette, their almost naive shapes and the presence they bring to a room. Like paintings, but with the added warmth and texture of wool.

A lovely way to bring a little of Brazil and Peruvian craftsmanship into our homes!

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Hélène’s favourite addresses in Lima

“I love Lima, a city with a unique setting, facing the Pacific, where I find everything I’m passionate about: art, craftsmanship, textiles and, of course, food, with its Andean, Amazonian and Asian influences. I go back regularly to see Elvia, who makes most of my tapestries. Each time, I take the opportunity to rediscover the city.”

Musee Larco à Lima
Galeria Livia Benavides Lima
Cafe Demo à Lima

Her addresses in Lima

My picks of the month

An exhibition: Canadian photographer Stan Douglas at the Jeu de Paume. A fascinating approach: the artist recreates scenes from past, sometimes forgotten, eras from scratch, with incredible attention to detail and remarkable print quality. Yet the exhibition left me a little wanting. While I admired the technical achievement, I was less moved by the highly constructed look of his images, as what I love most in a photograph is colour and emotion.

A purchase: the ochre Paisley cashmere scarf is back in stock, in limited quantities!

A Voyageuses pop-up: Voyageuses will be in Maisons-Laffitte at the lovely Nest boutique on 6 and 7 November.

A trip and a pair of sneakers: I’ve just come back from a wonderful trip to China. Inspiring, surprising, authentic. For a glimpse, click here. I also treated myself to a pair of sneakers from Pane, the new trendy Chinese brand, which has a pop-up at Le Bon Marché from this week, for those who’d rather not travel ;)