When you see a tapestry by Maximo Laura for the first time, what first catches your eyes are the intense and vibrant, but at the same time subtle, colors that flow through the piece.

To achieve these vibrant colors, if you look closely you´ll notice that each color is made up of various solid colored yarns mixed together. This gives the optical illusion of a color combination, creating the pictorial effect of the piece, the bright and vibrant combinations for which Maximo Laura is known for.

This technique has evolved throughout Maximo’s career. In the 70s and 80s, Maximo worked and designed his tapestries based on solid colors.

If we take a look at a piece from that period, we can see that each area is made up of uniformed colors. During the creation process, a solid color was assigned to each area and the yarn was then dyed to match those tones. 

If we take a look at a piece from that period, we can see that each area is made up of uniformed colors. During the creation process, a solid color was assigned to each area and the yarn was then dyed to match those tones. 

This is the traditional process that is still used by many weavers in Ayacucho, Maximo’s hometown.

Later on in the 90´s Maximo began experimenting with new techniques to achieve different colors in order to give his tapestries new depth, light and gradations, to match all the tones that he saw in his mind. He then adopted a different process that gave life to all the tonalities that we now see in his pieces.

We can take the tapestry “Sun Temple on Solstice” as an example.

If we see this piece from afar, we might not be able to see all the color variations, but if we zoom in, we’re able to see that each point is made up of various colors mixed together.

The process to create this effect begins with a line drawing. The drawing is then painted with colors, that later will be created in fibers by mixing different solid colors of yarn. 

With this new process the initial painting of the piece is not limited to uniformed colors, now it’s free to experiment, have variations, gradations and go from one color to another. This process increased enormously the number of tones that could be used on a tapestry, with almost unlimited possibilities. 

The mixing of the colors begins with many solid color yarns that will be mixed into bundles or “butterflies”.

During this process, the tapestry design is divided into different areas of color, each area will be matched with a group of bundles, which later will be used to weave the piece.

Each area will have between 4 – 12 bundles (depending on the size of the area) and each bundle is made up of 2 – 12 solid colored yarn (depending on the tonality that needs to be achieved).

This is what gives each tapestry a very special visual effect, as each point in the tapestry is like a pixel made of a variety of colors.

Below we can see a small part of this process, where each area is identified and the bundles are created to match them.

This process is done for each section of the piece until all areas have a matching group of bundles.

In total, the tapestry “Abundant Fruit of the Sea“, which can be seen below and has a size of 120 x 240 cm (47 x 94 in), uses 520 different bundles with approximately 130 different solid colors.

Below we can also see a picture of all 520 bundles together:

Once all the bundles are created, they go to the loom, where the Master Weaver in charge of the piece will place each bundle on its specific space, weaving line by line in a horizontal way until the complete tapestry comes to life.

We hope you’ve enjoyed exploring this part of Maximo’s work!

If there are any questions, please feel free to contact us at info@maximolaura.com