NATURAL IMPRESSIONS

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ornament as the visual language that better evokes
symbolic links between these worlds. She has
exhibited widely in Argentina and in the USA, UK
and Spain. Some of her solo shows include “Perro
– Lobo” (2020) invited by ICBC Bank Fundation
in Buenos Aires; “Utotropico” (2018) awarded by
Centro Cultural San Martin in Buenos Aires and “The
works of Lia Porto” (2016) by Kroto Fine Arts in
Chicago. Lia was awarded fellowships for attending
multiple residencies, including Sacatar Foundation
(Itaparica, Brazil), Art Omi (New York, USA) and
I-Park Foundation (Connecticut, USA). She also
received the Janet Bass Award for Creativity and
Innovation at FiberArt International 2022, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, USA , the 3rd Prize at Salón Nacional
de Artes Visuales, Palais de Glace 2021 (textile) and
the First Prize Acquisition at the III Salón Nacional
Vicentín 2014. She has been included in “The best
of 2014” collection by Saatchi Art. Her work has
been featured in many international art publishings
like Venti Journal, volume Senses (2022) https://
www.venti- journal.com/lia-porto , El Hurgador
Arte en Red (2022) https://elhurgador.blogspot.
com/2022/02/lia- porto-pintura-textiles-entrevista.
html, Fiber Art International blog (2022)
https://fiberartinternational.org/lia-porto/ Textile
Curator (2020) https://www.textilecurator.com/homedefault/home-2-2/liaporto/
The New Collectors Book
(NY 2014), https://issuu.com/thenewcollectors2011/
docs/n cb_091413_book_full/59 Inside the Studio
Saatchi Art interview (2014) https://canvas.
saatchiart.com/art/inside-the- studio/lia-porto.
LINDA FRIEDMAN SCHMIDT
Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, USA
INSTAGRAM: @lindafriedmanschmidt
WEBSITE: lindafriedmanschmidt.com
Linda Friedman Schmidt is a self-taught, Germanborn
American artist known for her emotional
narrative portraits created from discarded clothing.
She was born stateless in a displaced persons
camp, the first child of Holocaust survivors who
discouraged her interest in art. Her thoughtprovoking
artwork explores and expands the
medium of textiles in new and exciting ways. She
boldly pushes the boundaries, pushes the limits of
materials, techniques, and concepts and captures
the human experience in an original and authentic
voice. Her artwork has been shown internationally
and throughout the United States in group shows
at the American Folk Art Museum, Allentown Art
Museum, Lyman Allyn Art Museum, Morris Museum,
Jersey City Museum, New Jersey State Museum,
Montclair Art Museum, Monmouth Museum, Noyes
Museum of Art, Attleboro Art Museum, Alexandria
Museum of Art, Koehnline Museum of Art, Loveland
Museum, Cahoon Museum of American Art, Saint
Mary’s College Museum of Art, Fuller Craft Museum,
San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles among
others. Her work has been featured in multiple
shows at The Untitled Space Gallery, New York,
including the REBEL Exhibition, and published
in The Untitled Magazine’s 10th Anniversary
Collector’s Issue. She has had solo shows at the
Lancaster Quilt & Textile Museum, and the Pascal
Gallery at Ramapo College. Internationally her work
has been exhibited in the UK, Japan, Portugal,
and Argentina. Her work has been selected for
exhibition by prestigious curators Judy Chicago,
Faith Ringgold, Anne Umland, renowned art critic
Donald Kuspit, and numerous others. Linda’s work
has been reviewed in Hyperallergic and has been
featured in international textile magazines Textiel
Plus and Mr X Stitch. She has been profiled in
Living Artists Magazine and Interlocutor Magazine,
among others. Linda’s work has been published
in books “Dress [with] Sense:The Practical Guide
to a Conscious Closet,” “The Art of Mothering: Our
Lives in Colour and Shadow,” “Fiberarts Design
Book 7,” “Contemporary Hooked Art: Themes and
Memories,” “Not Normal: Art in the Age of Trump,”
and various others. Her work is held in multiple
private collections. She is the subject of a 2017 short
documentary film “Under Her Skin: Linda Friedman
Schmidt” directed by Kelsey and Rémy Bennett. In
2023 she received a Fellowship Finalist Award from
the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Currently
her work is on view in “Threading the Needle,” Mann
Gallery, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
LINDA MÄNNEL
Nuremberg, Germany
INSTAGRAM: @lindamnnl
WEBSITE: linda-maennel.de
Linda Männel, born 1983 in Hausham, Germany,
studied free art in the class of Diet Sayler at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg from 2003-
2005. She continued her studies in free painting in
the class of Eva von Platen, which she completed
in 2009 awarded with the title of Meisterschülerin
(master student). In 2014/15 she participated
as artist in residence at a room that… in the
Baumwollspinnerei in Leipzig.In 2017 followed an
artist in residence stay at the Arthouse in Tulum,
Mexico. In 2021, she founded the Tillystudios in
Nuremberg with colleagues, where she has been
working to date. Linda Männel exhibits her work all
across Europe and is represented internationally in
public and private collections.
LOUISE HEIGHES
Maragte, UK
INSTAGRAM: @louise_heighes
WEBSITE: louiseheighes.com
Louise Heighes studied Textile Design at Central
Saint Martins and sold her final degree collection
to Chanel in Paris. She spent many years working
within the fashion industry, designing for luxury
brands such as Louis Vuitton, Azzedine Alaia,
Nike and Chanel. Examples of her work have
been included in Azzedine Alaia’s exhibitions in
London and Paris. It was here that she fell in love
with working with leather. The way it can be cut,
stretched, woven or folded into 3D shapes, while
still remaining soft and tactile, acts as a pallet for
her imagination and allows her to create wholly
original pieces of leather art. Building on her fashion
background, she is now using beautiful decorative
techniques with luxury materials to produce unique
art pieces for the interior design market.
LUCIANA DE CARVALHO MONTEIRO
São Paulo, Brazil
INSTAGRAM: @lu.cmonteiro
Luciana Monteiro (São Paulo, 1970) lives and works
in São Paulo. She has a degree in psychology and
studied fine arts in Panamericana School of Art
and Design. For two years she studied weaving
and artistic tapestry with Tiyoko Tomikawa at SESC
Pompéia and attended free courses in drawing and
art history. Since 2020, Luciana has participated
in a collective of women artists, in partnership with
Ateliê397, and has been dedicated to research and
experimentation in the area of textile and visual
arts, participating in collective exhibitions such as
FIBRA – I Bienal de Arte Têxtil Contemporânea, RS,
2019; “Sobre Monstros” – Lona Galeria, SP, 2022;
“Mesmo estando separados” – Ateliê 397, SP, 2023
and “Em tempos como estes” – Galeria Marília
Razuk, SP, 2023.
MARIANA PORTO
São Paulo, Brazil
INSTAGRAM: @marianaportoart
WEBSITE: marianaporto.com.br
Mariana Porto conceived and directed initiatives
such as Objeto Design, a studio that created
utilitarian products in cast aluminum, reforestation
wood and blown glass, and Jade Handmade, a
textile development laboratory that helped her
choose fabric as an artistic language. Graduated
in plastic arts from Faculdade Santa Marcelina,
Mariana had her work exhibited at Espaço Galpão
(São Paulo, Brazil), at Sesc Copacabana (Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil) and at the Museo Nacional de
la Acuarela (Mexico City, Mexico). In 2019 she
founded Atelier 284, an exhibition and cultural space
in São Paulo.
MARIE POURCHOT
Montpellier, France
INSTAGRAM: @marie.pourchot
WEBSITE: marie-pourchot.com/
After a master’s degree in anthropology, where
Marie Pourchot was led to reflect on the social and
cultural functioning and the psycho- sociological
patterns of societies, she followed several training
courses around textiles: featherwork, patronage,
embroidery.
hThen, in a form of intuitive automatism, she merged
her curiosities and reflections in the human sciences
with the textile techniques acquired. her reflections
have gradually found their axis around the themes
of interculturality, otherness and the circulation of
people and ideas. her objective is to materialize
them by creating works combining textiles (hand
embroidery), engraving and painting. The action of
embroidering not only allows him to become fully
involved in his subject, but also to restore through
the length of his elaboration the temporality of exile,
absence, displacement and the long process of
syncretism.
Awarded for the presentation of the performance
of worn art Kimonoshima, during the AtoufFil
competition in 2013, she also received a prize for
the artwork “voyage en phantasmagorie” during the
3rd biennale of textile art in Poznan, Poland. Her
work, mostly committed, is exhibited internationally.
MARTINA GRUND
Kiel, Germany
INSTAGRAM: @martina_grund_art
WEBSITE: martinagrund.com
Founding of a culture cafe in Landau Isar in 1987
Training as an embroiderer/seamstress in the
Franciscan convent in Aiterhofen Theater factory
Kampnagel/costume department Apprenticeship as
a garment master in Hamburg Architecture studies
(5 semesters) Hamburg State Opera 1999-2012/
costume department Member of GEDOK Schleswig-
Holstein since 2018 exhibitions
Group Exhibition Eckernförde Gallery “Within” 2021,
Lübeck SINKING, GEDOK Schleswig-Holstein,
Lübeck 2019 Museum Cloth and Technology,
Neumünster 2019 xpon art gallery, Hamburg 2019
“Look at a thousand pictures”, Kiel 2018 Gallery
Hilldegarden 2018 Bunker Hill Gallery, Hamburg
2017 Historical Stallion Hall, Traventhal 2014
Fundación Valentin de Madariaga-MP, Seville 2010
Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest 2010 Historical
Stallion Hall, Traventhal 2009 German Textile
Museum, Krefeld 2008 The Waterhall, Birmingham
Museums and Art Gallery 2008 Stadthalle
Osnabrueck 2006