Elise Vazelakis

Elise Vazelakis is a Los Angeles based textile artist that explores using different materials to call attention to important topics. In these woven portraits, Vazelakis conceptualizes the deeply personal experience of revisiting the past and holding onto precious moments. It is important to note the contrast between the two different series are independently unique; however, they can be connected just the same.

The first series (1-5) commemorates the closure of the artist’s late mother and the second (6-7) depicts the vulnerability it takes to let go. By interlacing the outward expressions of our relationship with our pasts, the medium and artistic process become an integral part of understanding the works in this series. Vazelakis has exhibited her work internationally and continues to use the experiences around her work internationally and continues to use the experiences around her as inspiration for her current and future works.

The pieces in this series are my most personal works to date. They tell the story of my mother, whom I lost to cancer when I was six-years-old. An artist and poet, my mother was never able to complete her story, and in turn our story remained a distant memory and tale of longing.  It was not until I was an adult, having raised my own children, that I was able to read my mother’s poems, many of which she’d written when she was in the process of dying. While difficult to read, they brought great closure through an experience of a woman, my mother, that I had not had the privilege of knowing as a child. 

I have taken my mother’s photographs and poems and integrated them it into my weavings. The process has been a cherished task of completing her unfinished work, reconciling her formerly illusive identity, yet one that was so undeniably intertwined with my own. With this series, I have been able to bring peace, compassion and understanding to a formerly undefined relationship with my mother. Our conjoined story lives on through this work.