47 x 48 in
Carmen Mardonez,Textildermy
TM Gallery at COLLECT 2026, presented by HANNAH PAYNE ART
25 February – 1 March 2026
Carmen Mardonez (b. 1988, Santiago, Chile) is a contemporary textile artist based in Oxford, UK. Working across large-scale embroidered works, sculptural textiles and installations, Mardonez reimagines embroidery as a pictorial and spatial medium, using discarded fabrics such as bedsheets, clothing and domestic textiles as sites of memory, resistance and transformation.
Carmen Mardonez’s Textildermy series reclaims embroidery as a contemporary, expressive medium through which questions of identity, intimacy and the body are explored. The title Textildermy merges “textile” with “taxidermy,” evoking ideas of skin, preservation and transformation. In these works, fabric operates as a second skin — a surface that holds memory, emotion and lived experience, while resisting embroidery’s traditional associations with decoration or domestic utility.
Created in 2023 while the artist was living and working in Los Angeles, Textildermy IV, V and VI are shaped by the city’s intense light and colour. Saturated pinks, vivid greens and neon tonal shifts echo LA’s sunsets, beaches and expansive skies, while the works’ scale and physicality reflect an embodied engagement with place.
Mardonez works freehand and intuitively, building each composition through hundreds of intuitive, painterly stitches. Colour is gathered through repeated gestures of thread, accumulating into richly textured surfaces that oscillate between abstraction and bodily presence. The labour of embroidery is made visible and deliberate, transforming a historically feminised, domestic craft into a powerful site of expression and autonomy.
Using discarded bedsheets and domestic textiles, Textildermy proposes embroidery as both refuge and resistance — a space of safety, connection and creative freedom that feels, for the artist, like home.
Enquiries: Hannah@theartfive.com
images: Textildermy IV, V & VI (2023)
TM Gallery
Situated near King’s Cross, TM Gallery is a not-for-profit platform established by TM Lighting nearly a decade ago to support mid-career artistic practice in collaboration with artists, curators, and cultural institutions.
Each year, the gallery presents a programme of contemporary art exhibitions, talks and events, featuring contributors such as Iwona Blazwick OBE, Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark, Robert Montgomery, Bridget Riley, Amy Stephens, Richard Wentworth, and Freeny Yianni. Institutions including the University of the Arts London and the Royal Society of Sculptors have also participated.
TM Gallery brings together artistic practice, experimentation and exceptional art lighting, providing a space for exchange and community-building. Hannah Payne is the current programme curator, contributing to the development and direction of its exhibitions and events.
tmlighting.com