The Maker
A self-taught textile artist – St. Petersburg by birth, the Netherlands by formation, Spain by hand. A practice in continuous dialogue between tradition, material, and lived experience.
Julia del Arroyo is a self-taught textile artist born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia. She later spent fifteen years in the Netherlands and currently lives and works in Spain. Trained early in knitting, felting, and sewing, she draws on these foundations to create sculptural and wall-based works using textile materials, particularly natural ropes. Shaped by movement across cultures and landscapes, her practice reflects a continuous dialogue between tradition, material, and lived experience.
My practice centres on sculptural and wall-mounted textile works created from natural ropes and fibers. Through these materials, I explore the relationship between humans and their environment – how fibers respond to pressure, tension, disorder, and time, and how my hands engage with and shape these reactions.
I am drawn to texture as a language in itself, and to the transformative qualities of natural materials, which mirror environmental and human cycles of birth, growth, decay, identity, femininity, desire, repression, absence, and loss.
"Texture as a language in itself – natural materials that mirror our cycles of growth, decay, identity, desire, absence, and loss."Julia del Arroyo – Artist Statement
The textile traditions of Russia, the Netherlands, and Spain form an essential foundation for my work and my understanding of textiles within interior space. From Russia comes a deep respect for ornament, symbolism, and textiles as carriers of memory and narrative.
Dutch influence brings structure, restraint, and an attention to proportion and material honesty – where textiles interact thoughtfully with architecture. Spain contributes warmth, rhythm, and emotional tactility, shaped by light, climate, and daily life.
Together, these traditions inform a practice that balances discipline and expression, structure and flow.
From the Spanish – of the brook, of the stream.
A name that carries water through it: a quiet movement,
a continuous current, the slow shaping of stone by flow.
Julia del Arroyo. Of the water. Of the slow making.
My wall hangings and free-hanging textile sculptures are conceived as integral elements within interior environments rather than surface decoration alone. They evoke flowing water, shifting landscapes, and bodies in motion, allowing energy to move through organic forms and layered surfaces.
As light changes, shadows slowly shift across undulating textiles, revealing depth, rhythm, and quiet movement within the space. The works invite a tactile and emotional presence, anchoring interiors while softening them.
"Conceived as integral elements of interior space, these works evoke flowing water, shifting landscapes, and the body in motion – using light, shadow, and material to anchor walls with quiet energy and lived meaning."Julia del Arroyo
This practice is inseparable from my personal transformation – from the financial world to the art world, from urban life to a deeper connection with nature, and from east to west.
Each piece follows a thread revealed through an extensive, process-driven act of making, telling stories of human connection and our evolving relationship with the environments we inhabit.
