Tombolo Company ad: Tombolo Company

Meet Noel W. Anderson, the winner of Tombolo’s fifth-annual Artist Residency and our very first textile artist. We were immediately captivated by Noel’s richly textured and distorted tapestries, which are both viscerally pleasing - almost nourishing to look at - and simultaneously thought-provoking. His work investigates the mediated representation of Blackness in American culture, exploring how images circulate across histories of labor, celebrity, surveillance, and screen culture. Noel translates photographic and digital imagery into woven form, using cotton thread, dye, and material disruption to question how representation is constructed and consumed. When asked why he was interested in creating garments with Tombolo, Noel explained, “Clothing moves through the world differently than gallery objects; it allows images, patterns, and histories to circulate through lived experience and public space.” Once the Residency wraps, we’ll be hosting an exhibition of his work here in New York City. In the meantime, swipe to explore examples of Noel’s remarkable work and process.