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We often imagine fabrics as something fluid and delicate. However, some artists develop unique techniques of sculpting with a textile medium to create artworks that centre on ideas of impermanence and the fleeting moment.

Ribbonesia is an artist duo formed by the Japanese illustrator Baku Maeda and creative director Toru Yoshikawa who create mind-blowing art works from ribbons. Believing that ribbons hold the power to be more than just a decorative accessory, the artists transform the humble material into intricate sculptural pieces, taking advantage of its pliability and strength to shape dragons, creatures, face masks or floral landscapes.

Treating each ribbon as a brush stroke, the duo creates fascinating three-dimensional objects in  a variety of twists, bends and folds. Some works look very simple and understated like ‘Origami’, others are tangled and complicated balancing on the borderline between paintings and sculptures.

After their exhibition in 2014, the artworks by Ribbonesia have been featured in product campaigns for clients including Shiseido, Mont Blanc and Pierre Hermé.

Benjamin Shine, a Canberra-based multidisciplinary artist, is most known for his tulle works. He manipulates the delicate materials into form with an iron, often using a single uncut length of fabric. His sculptures are hand-shaped through a process of folding and compressing the pliable net material to generate the ethereal form.

Shine’s The Dance installation is entirely made of tulle and thread. Over 2000 metres of tulle were used to create the artwork via a process of pleating, layering, compacting and hand-sewing the material into shape.

A white circular vessel releases a smoke-like plume into the air, the colours converging to form two large faces and a series of dancing figures, silhouetted within the flowing fabric as if suspended in motion.

The large-scale self-supported Sky Flow (Quietude) sculpture appears to change colour from pink to dark crimson, depending upon the strength and direction of the sunlight. The piece is constructed from a steel sub-structure and a large custom made net, shaped through a process of compressing and folding the material into form. Challenged to create a self-supporting sculpture made from net, Shine had to work with a mesh manufacturer to design a material that would be strong enough to hold its own form and be large enough to be used as a single piece. Fabricated out of recycled high density polyethylene material, this rigid plastic mimics the delicate qualities of tulle.

To create his Entwined sculpture and installation for his own wedding, Shine utilized two translucent white ribbons forming faces, as if fleeting souls took physical form. Flowing from each profile, the two ribbons meandered over branches, bushes and around trees to lead guests into the forest where the ribbons formed the ceremonial wedding arch. Developed from his tulle works, Entwined follows the same principle but is instead made with folded ribbons of metal mesh powder-coated in white – in total, over 4 kilometers of handwork.
https://www.sivanroyz.com/

Israeli textile designer Sivan Royz has developed Blooming Structures, a series of delicate objects made of layers of digitally laser-cut silk, slotted together with a string. Taking their shapes from the world of blooming nature, the fungus-like pieces double as jewelry and accessories, as holes in the fabric  create cavities, suitable for holding items like a lipstick and mobile phone.

The three dimensional pieces react to movement when handled and change accordingly like a living organism. The fabric they are made of is coloured evenly or not coloured at all, while the dark parts are created by the laser cut line – the tighter the curves, the darker the edges of the silk.