About the Artist

It started with fabric

Caroline Axellie is an artist, raised and educated in Québec, and has long resided in Sweden. During three years in Jeddah, she stepped into a fabric store that seemingly had no end — a thousand and one colors in rolls from floor to ceiling. She thought she knew her materials. Here, something else opened up.

Back in Sweden, she started CaroArt.

Nothing in the images is painted. The motif is roughly sketched, each shape is cut from fabric — cotton, linen, Alcantara, horsehair — and the pieces are rearranged over days, sometimes weeks, until the composition is just right. Only then are they sewn on, one beneath the other, so that the image gains relief: edges that cast shadows, surfaces at varying heights.

"The machine was my pen."

The motifs are drawn from ancient Norse history and from nature. You rarely find a lone figure — the animals move in herds, the people stand together, the ships never sail alone.

The works have been exhibited in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Canada.

The images get to come out again

Caroline was a practicing artist for twenty years before she changed paths. The fabrics were put away, and the paintings hang in homes, hotels, and offices around the world.

Now, the art is calling to her again.

Her daughter Isabelle grew up in the studio, among fabric scraps and half-finished paintings, and attended gallery openings before she was tall enough to see over the tables. Textiles became her language too — she is a graduate of the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås with a master's degree in Fashion Marketing and Management.

It was she who thought the images deserved a new life.

Now, they are doing it together. The originals are being photographed one by one, and each image that once existed in only a single copy can now hang on more walls.

ISabelle and CAroline