The vital necessity of the gesture is immemorial. That of Regina Dejiménez reaches us through textile material, with a quality of soft, fluid movement, tempered but full of determination. Her work intertwines art, design and craftsmanship, and investigates the expressive possibilities of fabric, with whose attributes: flexible, warm, moldable, domestic, she fully identifies. “All these adjectives are a reflection of my way of being, of my most intimate and complex self,” she explains to Magazine.
The fabric links with the experiences of her childhood in her mother's sewing workshop, where she began to appreciate the best qualities. Well, her mother, in addition to making clothes, collected fabrics and garments and gave her the impulse to transform any material. There he learned his first craft techniques.
Graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona, with a specialization in sculpture and soft materials, and with studies in Artistic Photography Technique at the No10 Art School in Madrid, her course would be guided by the most intimate material, with proven emotional charge. He is seduced by the fabric's clear structure, composed of warp and weft and, at the same time, the infinite creative forms of constitution "It allows the possibility of creasing, tearing, breaking, composing, applying, quilting, painting, embroidering... a blank canvas within space and time in the history of art,” he points out.
With the fabric, often raw, she begins a dance based on intuition. ”I give power to the present moment of creation. I work from the combination of body memory and knowledge of the techniques, the behaviors of the matter and the phenomena that arise from it.” She views his pieces as semi-abstract representations of states of transformation of matter.
He indicates that he is interested in the study of living things. Observe and feel the language of nature. Although also the meditation processes. To delve deeper into both worlds, he carries out a process that combines moments of impulsive and visceral expression with moments of slow, controlled creation close to haute couture. “I seek to investigate diversity, hybridity, the flow of life, how time transforms and beautifies. My work talks about how deformation, fusion and complexity are elements full of elegance. Repetition patterns, scales and always curved shapes are my tools for this,” he specifies.
Her pieces are sculptures on an architectural scale, sensory landscapes in which she uses nomadic merino sheep wool, cotton gauze and different sewing techniques with support structures. “We need to stop producing plastic materials and derivatives but we should not exploit organic materials either,” he points out. That's why he always uses old materials, stock fabrics, sustainable wools. I don't close my creative sources to any material. I could create with almost everyone. However, I choose what is most coherent with me and my environment.”
Likewise, she works in collaboration with interior designers and architects to bring emotion to spaces through textiles, and with fashion designers on accessories. If clothing is our second skin and the house is our third, Dejiménez with his pieces influences both through textile surfaces and territories of marked tactility, which suggest clothing on a different scale.
His work seems to invite approximation. But is it intended to be touched or just for an eye that evokes tactile sensations? “My interest is to expand the channels of perception in people who enjoy my work. The senses are many and I love that there is contact. I see it as necessary for mental health,” she clarifies.
Born in Madrid in 1984, and settled in Pedreguer, Alicante, for family reasons, she values her career and the open space in the profession as “a leap into the void, without references, without influences. Blindly trusting that developing my artistic and human capabilities is a vital commitment for me and for the world. It is a bet every second on my intuition that my artistic expression is important for the history of art.” Textile, Dejiménez reminds us, is “this material that approaches people in an intimate and everyday way. It is the first object that touches us when we are born and the last one that covers us when we die."
