Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and now working between Mexico and southern Chile, Rosalba Torres brings an architectural understanding of structure, proportion, and space to her contemporary textile practice. She transforms thread into intricate sculptural forms, exploring volume, movement, and texture. 

Working with cotton, acrylic fibres, and copper, Torres combines techniques such as thread wrapping, micro-macramé, and embroidery. Her work draws on traditional Mexican textile practices, reinterpreted through a distinctly contemporary lens. 

The result is a captivating interplay of organic form, repetition, light, and shadow. 

Get an insight into Rosalba Torres’ creative process in this edition of our latest blog.

View Rosalba's Work HERE

Your work has such a strong sense of movement and energy. What are you hoping the viewer feels when they first encounter one of your pieces? 

I want that first impression to invite the viewer to come closer. I like the idea that a piece cannot be fully understood at a single glance, but that as you spend more time looking at it, new forms, rhythms, and details begin to emerge. 

Many of my works are built through repetition, layering, and small elements that only reveal themselves up close. 

I enjoy that moment of surprise when the viewer begins to understand how the piece is constructed and discovers that thread can take on a much more structural, dimensional, and sculptural presence than they might have expected.

Can you take us through your creative process - from the first idea to the finished work?

My process rarely begins with a completely resolved idea. I usually start with a form, a structure, or even a technique that I want to explore, and from there the piece develops quite organically. 

Many decisions happen through the material itself: one form leads to another, repetition begins to create an unexpected volume, or one technique leads me to introduce another. I like allowing these discoveries to shift the initial direction of the piece rather than trying to control the final result from the beginning.  

That is why I think of each work almost as an experiment. The making process is not simply the execution of a predefined idea; it is also my way of thinking, testing, and finding the form.

Texture and material play an important role in your work. What draws you to the materials you use, and how have you developed your technique over time?

I am very drawn to the way thread can transform. I work primarily with cotton because it is such a versatile and responsive material. Its flexibility allows me to shape it, tension it, wrap it, and take it in different directions, whether I am working with a very fine thread or a much thicker cord. From that base, I introduce other fibers, textures, and colors depending on what each piece calls for. 

Over time, I have incorporated and combined different textile techniques, including wrapping, weaving, embroidery, and micro-macramé. Many of these come from traditional practices, but I am interested in taking them outside their usual context; shifting them, layering them, or changing their scale to discover different ways of building with them.  

I think my technique has developed precisely through this experimentation. Rather than treating each technique as a separate discipline, I use them as tools that I can combine to build form, texture, and volume. Repetition and detail ultimately become part of the structure of the piece itself, not simply its appearance.

Where do you find inspiration outside of the studio? Are there particular places, experiences, or moments that continually find their way into your work?

My inspiration does not usually begin with a specific subject or image that I want to represent. I am very drawn to complex structures, regardless of where I encounter them. They might appear in another artist's work, an installation, an object, or simply something I find visually interesting. 

I often look at these structures and imagine how I could translate some of their qualities into thread and bring them into my own language. I also believe that the places I have lived have inevitably shaped my visual language. Mexico is very present in my relationship with color, ornamentation, the intensity of detail, and craftsmanship. These references are part of the way I see and construct, even when they do not appear as a direct representation within a piece.  

From these references, experimentation begins: I combine techniques, shift scales, repeat elements, and allow the material to generate new possibilities. Interestingly, many of the resulting forms end up taking on an organic quality, and only afterwards do names such as Follaje or Liana emerge. They were not created with the intention of representing a plant or a landscape; that association comes later, once the piece begins to acquire an identity of its own.

As your work is introduced to collectors in Whistler, what are you most excited for people to discover about you and your practice?

I am excited for people to discover a different way of approaching textiles. I am interested in thread being understood not only as a material associated with traditional techniques, but also as a medium for building volume, structure, and forms with a sculptural presence of their own. 

I would also like people to discover that my practice is constantly evolving. I do not work within a completely fixed language or try to repeat a formula; each piece is an opportunity to test a new combination, scale, or way of building with thread. 

I think that experimentation is precisely what keeps my work alive and allows me to continue surprising myself with what can emerge from the material.  And I am especially excited that these pieces are now beginning a life outside my studio, in a place so far from where they were created, where they can generate new interpretations and connections with the people who encounter them.

View Rosalba's Work HERE