Feliciano Centurión

An important chapter of Centurión's oeuvre is his series of ‘frazadas’ or blankets, on which he embroidered his own poetic reflections or painted symbols. He worked with cheap, synthetic blankets used for household packing and for shelter by the homeless, cutting and reframing these materials with satin trims and adorning with his paintings.

Centurión was raised by his mother and grandmother, from whom he learnt the crafts of sewing, crochet and ñanduti (a Guarani work for ‘spiderweb’), a handmade lace based on styles imported from the Canary Islands during colonisation. Centurión's textile practice pays homage to historically feminine skills, queering traditions passed down from mothers to daughters in Paraguay for generations, and drawing upon the functions and the poetic values of textile: sewing as a means to repair; textile craft as a therapeutic act; blankets and pillowcases as objects of comfort.

Speaking about his 'frazadas' in 1990, the artist wrote 'It is essential that we "choose" the materials with which we work. Our consumer society offers us an infinite selection that we can "appropriate" to make "new objects" with which we can live. But once we decontextualise them, assemble them, paint them, or assail them, they reveal that they passed through our feelings.'