Woven into Paloma: An Artist Collaboration with Kenia Almaraz Murillo

Kenia Almaraz Murillo’s practice begins long before the loom. Born in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, she spent her early childhood immersed in Aymara and Quechua culture, surrounded by craft and the rituals of daily life. When she arrived in France at the age of eleven, that world fell abruptly out of reach. For five years she lived without seeing her parents or extended family, a separation that would come to shape her work profoundly.

As Kenia tells us, weaving became a way of returning. Studying visual arts in Paris and later entering the Beaux-Arts, she encountered the technique of basse lisse weaving in 2015, a moment she describes as reactivating “the memory of the thread.” What followed was not simply a technical practice, but a deeply personal one: a means of reconnecting with family histories, ancestral skills, and the tactile knowledge passed down through generations of women in her family.

Her memories are vivid and precise. Being carried across the Rio Mauri in her mother’s aguayo. Sitting by the fire with her grandmother as she coaxed the flames. Walking through hills with her blind grandfather, guided by the sound of wind and the feel of stone underfoot. These moments don’t appear literally in the work, but they are embedded within it, felt rather than illustrated.

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The works chosen for the Paloma Collection’s Mallorcan home carry a charged, expansive energy, one that feels entirely at home within the island’s vast skies and Mediterranean light. Set to be placed within an authentic finca, where views stretch out toward the sea, Kenia’s work speaks to the elemental forces that shape both landscape and daily life. When we spoke with Kenia, she reflected on growing up immersed in local craftsmanship and tradition, values that resonate deeply with the way Mallorcan homes are built and lived in, grounded in material honesty and a close relationship with the natural world.

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El Relámpago azul (The Blue Storm) draws directly from a moment Kenia shared with her mother during a visit to the village of Aquechata. Standing high on a hill, watching clouds gather, they witnessed lightning strike repeatedly across the sky. At over 4,000 metres above sea level, lightning is not merely a spectacle, it is a force imbued with myth and fear. In Mallorca, that same electric blue finds a different resonance, echoing the shifting tones of the Mediterranean seen from the finca, where sea and sky meet in constant movement.

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Within the Mallorcan home, the work’s woven surface and shifting light feel instinctively at ease. Layers of wool, cotton, alpaca and historic silver thread interact with natural light throughout the day, while the illuminated line cuts through the space like weather passing across the horizon. The piece holds both power and clarity, an elemental presence that mirrors the island itself.

In the French Alps, the mood softens. The Nube series, small, cloud-like weavings, explores sleep and dreaming as sacred states. For Kenia, sleep is not simply rest, but a threshold: a space where memory, imagination and ancestral knowledge drift freely.

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Created as part of her wider exploration of Morpheus and the dream world at Waddington Custot, the Nubes act as gentle settings, floating forms upon which imagined creatures might sleep. Within the context of an Alpine chalet, they sit naturally alongside timber beams, stone floors and woollen interiors, spaces designed for warmth, retreat and stillness to contrast the more active days spent outdoors.

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In the quieter rhythm of the mountains, the Nubes bring a sense of calm and continuity. Their muted, creamy tones and delicate textures echo the alpine palette, while their presence invites pause. The works don’t demand attention; they reward it slowly, offering a counterpoint to the vastness outside, and reinforcing the chalet as a place of rest and shared time together.