The vitality of Caroline da Costa’s work lies in her constant search for new materials and techniques to express her artistic vision. English-born Caroline has been in love with textiles and sewing since childhood, and much of her inspiration today stems from her ability to find beauty in discarded ephemera and objets trouvés which she uses to depict the themes that haunt her imagination.

The colour and texture of a shirt washed up on a beach, a delicate shell, a piece of driftwood, a scrap of cloth or rope along with a host of other odds and ends become the raw material that is transformed and given a new life - and a new story - in the final work of art. Her techniques also include the use of her own hand-made paper and fleece coloured with her own dyes. These are subtly mixed with light and transparent fabrics to create a myriad of  poetic effects. She uses collage as her main technique, layering many different fabrics which are then machined down or embroidered. Occasionally she uses various types of paint to add to the colour dynamic and texture. Metal and driftwood also appear as constituent elements in her compositions. She neatly sums up the enduring appeal and magic of her art: “Since the beginning of civilisation fabrics have been part of our daily environment – familiar, warm, feminine and sensual. They offer many different contrasts such as the touch of rough cloth, the smooth coolness of linen, the sensuality of silk, the magic of transparent organdie and chiffon…”

In philosophical terms her art has not only aesthetic value but a temporal significance as she uses scraps to give them new life and to tell a fresh story. Influenced by summers spent on the west Algarve coast and her life in Normandy near the sea where she lives, she produced a body of work based on the theme of the ocean and exhibited in Lagos, Algarve, this year alongside her great friend Christine Pâris Montech in a two person show entitled “Mar e Lua” (Sea and Moon). Both artists found inspiration in the sombre cliffs of the extreme west, the rocks and seaweed, the black pebbles, and old boats lying in port.

Nowadays, her work is turning more to the abstract and through shape and line, colour harmonies, contrasts of light and shade, she translates her feelings about these magic and joyful places.

It was in Lisbon soon after the Revolution that Caroline’s career as a self-taught artist began to take shape. “In Lisbon at that time there was nothing much happening and many shops were closed so I used whatever I could find in the way of scrap fabric. I made two cushions and had them tucked under my arm on my way to see a friend when a Portuguese woman stopped me in the street and asked me where I got them and asked me to make some for her.” From there the popularity and demand for her work grew and she later made items for a well known Lisbon shop including clothing. She then started to make wall hangings, some slightly abstracted depicting the look and spirit of Lisbon, the work inspired by the Portuguese artist Botelho. In 1987, she went with her husband Georges to Turkey and the ensuing six years proved a turning point in her artistic development. “I was unknown in Istanbul so I started to teach patchwork and textiles, and my whole style changed. What inspires me tremendously is fabrics, some of which I create myself.  I colour them with natural dyes and sometimes paintsand therefore what inspired me was the fabrics I found in Turkey and this steered me in a new direction in my work.”

She had already had a solo show in the Institut Francais in Lisbon and during her stay in Turkey a solo exhibition in 1993 at the Institut Francais in Istanbul. This was the start of numerous exhibitions of her work over the next 12 years in France where the couple moved in 1993. They live in La Manche, Normandy where Caroline created a successful association dedicated to learning the art of patchwork and appliqué.  

In the summer of 2009 she was preparing work for an Easter exhibition in 2010 entitled “Le Passage du Temps” (“The Passage of Time”) in Normandy. “I am constantly looking for new ideas. As I walk the countryside and the beaches I find a lot of things, scraps of fabrics and also other objets trouvés, that spark associations and ideas and there are so many beautiful things to be found. “This is why Christine and I joined up so well because we both get inspiration from the beauty of what we find.”

Both Caroline and Christine will exhibit at the Arte Algarve international fair at Expo Pavilion, Loulé from November 29th - December 1st this year.