Trine Ellitsgaard

Trine Ellitsgaard grew up in Denmark and it was there she trained as a weaver, but for the last twenty years she has made her home in Oaxaca, Mexico. The ordered geometric designs, the muted colors, the soothing balance of forms and textures all seem to express a Scandinavian sensibility in direct contrast to a life spent in Mexico or to traditional Mexican weaving, but the influence is undeniably there. Underneath the deceptive simplicity and harmony of the designs, there are surprising cultural clashes and combinations which reveal a delight in strangeness as well as the peculiar beauty that can emerge from chaos. Trine's work takes hold of all that she has observed in Mexico, but the Scandinavian in her reconstitutes it into new patterns; out of the meeting of these two cultures emerges a new way of seeing both.