A thread pulls. A memory stirs.

This is where Drape and Weave begins – an unfolding of cloth, form, and gesture within the walls of Le Pavé d’Orsay in Paris. Curated by Chloe Borich, the exhibition gathers six artists whose practices slip between painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, each exploring what fabric can hold: time, identity, intimacy, transformation.

Borich has long been attuned to the power of cloth. Her 2018 curatorial debut, These Clothes Mean Something, positioned clothing as something latent with deeper meaning. Now, with Drape and Weave, she returns to the medium with expanded depth, asking not what fabric represents, but how it remembers.

Lauren Brincat’s floating textile instruments. Julia Gutman’s stitched portraits of self. Gregory Hodge’s illusory painted "ribbonus gestures". Clare Thackway’s rumpled bedsheets, absent of bodies. Kenza Radley’s handwoven dissonances. Giles Thackway’s algae-soft relics of ecological grief. Each work carries weight, and yet, as with all of Borich’s projects, there’s no heavy-handed thesis here. Only subtle invitations to brush up against what’s been tucked away in the folds.

We spoke with Chloe in the lead-up to the exhibition’s opening, to unpick the inspirations, processes, intentions and materials that hold Drape and Weave together.

I know you’ve always been particularly interested in the intersection of fashion and art (I still remember attending your first exhibition at Analogue Gallery These Clothes Mean Something back in 2018!), but what inspired the theme of fabric as the central focus of this exhibition?

The relationship between art and fashion has always fascinated me. For that first exhibition These Clothes Mean Something (2018), I was taken with lectures by fashion historian and curator Valerie Steele, as well as a library of books like Women in Clothes edited by Shelia Heti and Elsa Schiaparelli's autobiography Shocking Life, all which positioned clothing as a potent device to explore ideas of history, identity and artistry. Drape and Weave comes after years of looking at and writing about textile based art practice, taking fabric as an abstract entry point into an unspoken, sensory language. Cloth harbours latent potential, it possesses a resonance that other mediums simply don’t. Drape and Weave sees artists use it to unravel ideas around materiality, cultural lineage, the body and self/other, where fabric functions as a textural surface, an anchor point and recurring point of reference.

How did you select these particular six artists for Drape and Weave?

The artists in the exhibition are all interconnected somehow, it was a very intuitive show. I recently moved to London and had been talking to Clare Thackway and Gregory Hodge about doing something together in Paris, as they've been living and working there for the last five years. From there, conversations between our network of trusted artists and friends – Lauren Brincat, Julia Gutman, Giles Thackway and Kenza Radley – evolved into Drape and Weave. Every artist in the exhibition is incredibly dedicated to their studio practices, and expanding their output both in Australia and abroad, which I think is something to be celebrated.

In curating the show, did any unexpected connections emerge between the artists' works?

Until artworks are physically in the same room together you can’t be certain how they’ll relate to one another. For me, the connections between them emerged in pairs: the bodily relationships evoked by Lauren and Clare's pieces; Kenza's hand-loomed weavings alongside Giles' digitally woven soft sculpture; and the textural treatment of surface by Julia and Gregory that look to cannocial paintings.

Can you describe the space at Le Pavé d'Orsay, and how it influenced the way the works were installed?

If you stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries and across the Seine over the Pont Royal, you’ll find Le Pavé d’Orsay in the 6th. It’s a beautiful light filled space with incredible high ceilings and large windows that look out onto the street. I think the curation of the works took into account these sight lines from outside looking in. The front of the gallery offered an immediate openness, which was counterbalanced by a more introspective atmosphere towards the back.

Are there any unexpected references woven into the works on display?

Although it was planned, the audience on opening night were treated to an unexpected performance. Choreographed by the Artistic Director of Danish Dance Theatre, Marina Mascarell, and activated by dancer and costume designer, Nina Botkay, they responded to Lauren’s instruments in waiting. what holds us (selected witches) (2025) presents helium balloons that suspend trailing lengths of cloth into the air, possessing a life like presence and moving autonomously around the front of the gallery. Throughout the evening Nina would interact with them, her body moving in tandem with the objects, storytelling. It was so beautiful to watch.

How do you hope visitors will feel or think differently after seeing the show?

I hope people leave with a heightened awareness about the textures of our everyday experiences. We're all a part of the same cloth.