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rhea moras

@rheamoras

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𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝘀
cotton thread, raw silk. dimensions variable, 2025

i took the kitakita stitch, the one repeated everywhere in pipli appliqué, and let it grow. the same stitch, continued on and on, until it reached about eighty times its size. magnified to the point it’s impossible to ignore.

at that scale the floats of thread are long and fragile. left to themselves they fall, they slacken. but here they’ve been pulled up and away from the cloth, and used to hold it up. the stitch holds the fabric.

when pulled, the stitch begins to unravel, threads lifting from the front and the back. yet even in deconstruction, its form reappears. fragility reveals itself as resilience.
with light, the shadows fall sharper and darker than the threads themselves. the shadow becomes more visible than the substance, echoing how women’s labour sustains pipli appliqué while remaining unseen.

the irony is that this reversal is, in fact, reality. it is the stitch that holds the fabric, just as it is women’s work that holds pipli together. yet the system insists otherwise, persuading them that their role is secondary, dependent on the fabric they’re supplied with.

this work asks: what truly holds? the cloth, or the stitch? the material provided, or the labour that binds it into being?  images 1-3: the final installation, exhibited at The Popular Pipli, Lalit Kala Akademi, Bhubaneswar images 4-5: initial concepts, droopy floats  images 6-8: production, a clip of the best @biswal9299 effortlessly splitting the lengthy lengths of embroidery floss images 9-10: securing the floats, all ready for installation images 11-12: some yum close-up shots of the test installation  
part of a reversal, made during the oco residency 2025. @odishacraftodyssey by @rheamoras

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4 months ago

𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀
hand-drawn digital animation, frame by frame,
3 minutes, 2025

making visible the sequence of decisions embedded within each stitch, decisions that are ordinarily invisible. the stitch is no longer a single moment of action. it becomes a process, a sequence of gestures, a path traced by the needle, a record of where a maker’s hand chose to go.

part of a reversal, made during the oco residency 2025. @odishacraftodyssey by @rheamoras

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4 months ago

𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻?
cotton thread on raw canvas, 78 x 5 inches, 2025.

i asked the women to make just one kitakita petal (kitakita is what they call this particular stitch and some other variations of it). only one. they were puzzled. “but why? we can make the whole flower.” the single unit on its own isn’t how they work. petals cluster into flowers, flowers into borders, and the one stitch only ever exists as part of something bigger.

but as the canvas filled, ninety-nine signatures gathered on it, each one made by a different woman from pipli and the villages around it.

this is the most ordinary stitch there is, made many many times a day, dismissed as easy. and yet, side by side, no two are alike. each hand carries a different rhythm, a different pull of thread, a different curve. the women started noticing it themselves. “mine looks like this, hers looks like that.” they compared them to handwriting, recognising their own marks among the others.

so is this really repetition?
to call it that is to erase the presence in each one. looked at closely, repetition becomes something else. a field of difference. authorship written stitch by stitch.

~
part of ‘a reversal’, made during the oco residency 2025. @odishacraftodyssey by @rheamoras

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5 months ago

a year ago i spent about 6 weeks in pipili, odisha, on a residency with Odisha Craft Odyssey. most of it wasn’t in the town’s appliqué shops but in the homes, workshops and villages around them, where the work actually gets made.

i went in to research the craft, and ended up spending a lot of my time with the women who make it. watching how they stitch, sitting with them while they worked.

pipili appliqué is loud, bold, instantly recognisable, and also really repetitive. the same motifs, the same forms, again and again. but the more time i spent on the ground, the more i found myself looking at what usually goes unnoticed. who actually makes each piece. how the labour gets divided. whose name ends up on the finished object, and whose doesn’t.

one small thing held all of it. a single stitch, repeated endlessly by women artisans, on almost every piece. overlooked precisely because it never stops, treated as interchangeable. and yet, looked at closely, no two are alike. each one carries a subtle trace of presence. that’s the smallest space where individuality survives, and it’s the place i wanted to work from. not to show the stitch as a technique, but to pull the overlooked into the light and make it visible. the hands, and the individuality, behind the work.

out of this came a body of work titled, ‘𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗹’.
drawing attention to what usually goes unseen, creating events that put women at the centre, building archives of their own expression. the residency ended with an exhibition, The Popular Pipli, at Lalit Kala Akademi, Bhubaneshwar.

the residency is over, but the question it left me with isn’t. whose hands go unseen in the things we call tradition, and where individuality survives inside all that repetition. i think i’ll be following that thread for a while :))  the works from this residency will start going up here over the coming weeks, one at a time. taken in Odisha by @rheamoras

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5 months ago

Every artist brings their own rhythm to tattooing, and @rheamoras 's rhythm is slow, grounded, and full of heart.

Her journey began with textiles, where touch and texture guided her. When she found tattooing, it felt like discovering something she already knew.
Through her art, Rhea celebrates presence over perfection.

We've collaborated with her for our latest drop.
You can get her tattoo from our website: anomalietattoo.com

#artistofanomalie by @rheamoras

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a year ago

A dialogue between art and artisans

The residency programme marks the culmination of six weeks of dialogue, discovery, and making in Pipili.

Through immersive research and collaboration, artist Madhulika S. Naidu, Rhea Moras, and Raj Maurya reinterpreted Pipili's appliqué, tracing its histories, labour, and lived experiences.

From stitched stories to archival impressions, each work reflects a conversation between craft and contemporary practice, between what is inherited and what is reimagined.

Curated by Sibdas Sengupta, the exhibition continues OCO's vision of blurring the boundaries between art, craft, and research.

Odisha Craft Odyssey is an initiative of @beadstudios and MGM Foundation.

#OdishaCraftOdyssey #ThePopularPipili #Applique #Contemporary #CraftResearch #craftofodisha #ResidencyProgrammae taken in Lalit Kala Akademi Regional Centre by @rheamoras

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a year ago

959 crosses
20 cms tall
2 ply cotton thread

third and last one done :’))
completed it a few months ago but only got around to posting now. i think this one’s my favourite! all the three seem to have their own personalities hehe

the trees total over 5,400 stitches! for a while, i’d been noticing these cypress motifs across cultures, and somehow that quietly led me to start this series. each piece grew one at a time, drawing from the previous. they feel like part of the same garden, yet each has grown in its own direction. it’s fun to see how repetition can still find ways to be unique!

debating whether to keep it as a cushion cover or put it up on the wall?

#crossstitch #slowmaking by @rheamoras

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a year ago

Exploring Darji Sahi and learning techniques
@odishacraftodyssey @beadstudios by @rheamoras

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a year ago

We’re thrilled to announce the 3 selected Artists-in-Residence for the Odisha Craft Odyssey's Residency Programme 2025. An immersive journey into the vibrant appliqué traditions of Pipli.

@instamaurya Raj Maurya works across photography, film, and archival material to investigate memory and identity.
@alchemyfuture Madhulika weaves together craft, food, and ethnographic inquiry to reflect on cultural diversity.
@rheamoras Rhea Moras uses textiles as a medium to explore memory, trauma, and healing.

A heartfelt congratulations to each of them. We’re excited to see the stories they’ll craft through the rich visual language of Appliqué craft in Pipli.

Odisha Craft Odyssey is an initiative of @beadstudios and MGM Foundation.

#residency #residencyprogram #odishacraftodyssey #PipliCraft #applique #craftofodisha #CraftAndCommunity #artists #ArtistCall #announcement taken in Exotic Odisha by @rheamoras

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a year ago

3842 crosses
29.5 cms tall
2 ply cotton thread

finally got done with this one! one more to go :))

#crossstitch #slowmaking #embroidery by @rheamoras

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a year ago

~work in progress~
close to a month of working on this one, and i’m about two-thirds done! i have no idea how it’s going to look next to the tiny first piece i made, it’s like six times the size (going by number of crosses xD). i didn’t plan out the motifs too rigidly, just placing things as i go. it’s kind of like a swatch–not just to see what works visually, but also to try things out, follow what i feel like stitching, and let the whole thing build intuitively.

but i’m also trying not to treat it like just another swatch. until now, embroidery’s mostly been little practice pieces, like things i wouldn’t have considered complete or worth keeping out. doing this on a cushion cover feels like a shift–it’s pushing me to actually finish it as a full thing. curious to see if it all holds together in the end, with some kind of balance.

#crossstitch #slowmaking #embroidery #wip by @rheamoras

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a year ago

620 crosses
10cm tall
2ply cotton thread

i bought this cotton crinkle double-cloth cushion cover from ikea and felt like embroidering on it. took a little break from intuitive work and tried a planned motif for the first time in a reallyyy long time…and it felt really nice :))

finished this one over a month ago, got excited (and maybe v v ambitious), and started working on a new motif that’s…kinda little bit massive and currently feels like it’ll never complete hahaha.
still a wip, will post soon! by @rheamoras

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a year ago