Stéphanie Lacoste: Weaving Light, Colour and Emotion
Tisserand and contemporary creator, Stéphanie Lacoste navigates the delicate interplay of colour, light, and texture with a rare precision. Her work bridges centuries-old weaving traditions with contemporary concerns and technologies.
Each thread, gesture, and hue tells a story, inviting the viewer into a sensitive, intimate experience. Committed to passing on her craft, Stéphanie Lacoste paves the way for a new generation of weavers, while asserting the place of weaving firmly within contemporary art.
Discovering an Unexpected Calling
Early in her studies, Stéphanie had no inkling she would become a weaver. Attentive professors recognised her inclination for textile crafts, and the art of weaving soon became her natural path.
« I fell in love immediately with this craft, and I am profoundly grateful for the guidance that shaped my artistic and professional journey, » she reflects.
Initially drawn to wood, a fascination since childhood, Stéphanie found her way to textiles through an intuitive understanding of colour and material.
« I wasn’t drawn to figurative drawing, but to texture and colour. These aspects very quickly defined my work, » explains Stéphanie Lacoste.
After completing a DMA in Textile with a focus on weaving, she expanded her training with fashion design and went on to earn a Higher Diploma in Applied Arts, enriching her creative vision. Her six years at the École Duperré shaped an artistic sensibility deeply attuned to light and colour — both on the body and within space.
Colour, Light, and Perception: The Language of Her Art
Stéphanie Lacoste constructs an artistic language where colour, light, and perception converse. Her pieces play with illusion and subtlety, guiding the viewer’s eye and evoking emotion through gesture and material.
« My work revolves around light, visual perception, and emotions that provoke reflection and sharpen the way we look at the world, » she explains.
Her approach is enriched by philosophical and artistic influences: Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, Yves Klein’s immateriality, and Rothko’s depth.
« Art history and philosophy have a powerful impact. Discovering the writings of other thinkers helps us formulate ideas and test them against other perspectives, » adds Stéphanie.
From her earliest student projects, she explored light, colour, and intimacy: garments altering colour perception, installations combining textiles and light projections, objects blending seamlessly into their environment. Her work invites a fully sensory experience.
Art that Reveals Innate Talent
The strength of Stéphanie Lacoste lies in her mastery of colour. An intuitive colourist, she can reproduce exact shades using pigments, inks, paint, or plants, crafting textures that are at once subtle, nuanced, and profoundly expressive.
« I like to remain in delicacy and barely perceptible nuance. Sometimes a tiny touch of colour can transform the entire story, even if the untrained eye doesn’t notice it, » she confides.
Every thread, material, and motif is chosen to create a precise universe. Rhythm, texture, contrast, and colour harmony define her signature. Even before learning traditional weaves such as twill or herringbone, Stéphanie instinctively created rhythms that structured her work, recognised and nurtured by her mentors.
Her weaving often echoes music and architecture: compositions that are both rigorous and sensitive, where warp threads form the foundation and the weft provides the structural bricks that give life to the whole.
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Inspiration from Places and Emotion
Travels and landscapes feed Stéphanie Lacoste’s imagination. The chalets of the Valais, the dark seas of Normandy, low tides and shifting light, or architectural details such as stair rails or tiles—all become elements to collect, recombine, and translate into a textile narrative.
« I draw my stories from visuals, often thinking of the people for whom I create, » she says.
Each commission becomes a dialogue: « Clients choose me for my universe, and together we weave a story. It’s tremendously stimulating, » Stéphanie remarks.
Weaving into Contemporary Art
Stéphanie Lacoste welcomes the rise of weaving as a recognised art form. Landmark exhibitions by Sheila Hicks, Anni Albers at Tate Modern, and major tapestry retrospectives in Paris have revealed the expressive potential of thread to the public.
Weaving is no longer a mere craft or utility—it has become a pictorial and sculptural language, capable of eliciting emotion and contemplation.
Since 2009, Stéphanie has taught students to experiment with unconventional materials—inner tubes, reed mats—pushing the boundaries of traditional weaving. This pedagogy fosters a new generation of bold creators with strong identities and a distinctive artistic DNA.
Sustainable Creation and a Personal Exhibition
Today, Stéphanie Lacoste is ready for ambitious personal projects: monumental, durable, and modular installations that offer a fully immersive sensory experience while rejecting the ephemeral.
« I resist waste. My work must endure, » she insists.
This readiness also signals Stéphanie’s desire to stage her first solo exhibition, a defining moment in her career: showcasing her work, narrating stories, and sharing an immersive vision of contemporary weaving.
Tradition and Innovation: A Continuous Dialogue
While embracing modern technologies—digital cutting, contemporary tools, and AI for inspiration research—Stéphanie Lacoste remains faithful to intuition and the hands-on experience of the maker.
« I situate myself within millennial practices while questioning current technologies. I enjoy blending temporalities, » she explains.
Stéphanie’s commitment to sustainability aligns with a profound respect for age-old craft: the ingenuity of Thai and Indonesian artisans, the complexity of patterns woven on rudimentary looms, and the transmission of ancestral knowledge all inform her practice and reflection on continuity between tradition and modernity.
Her work balances ancestral techniques, the rhythm of material time, and the exploration of new forms. Each thread, each hue, each gesture maintains continuity, linking past and present, tradition and modernity.
The result is a subtle equilibrium between heritage, innovation, emotion, and technique: a textile language that engages both eye and mind, affirming weaving as a distinct art form in the contemporary landscape.
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