The Paddocks Gallery is pleased to present through clouds of silk, a solo exhibition by Charlotte Nieuwenhuys. Featuring a new series of textile works and embroideries stemming from the artist’s residency at The Paddocks in autumn 2025, the exhibition explores memory, symbolism, and the stories we carry with us.
On the island of Tinos, hyperthyra are half-moon marble lintels found above doors and windows of traditional stone houses. Once designed as structural beams that allowed light and air into the home, they evolved into richly-carved decorative elements and became an integral part of the island’s marble-carving tradition. Over time, these lintels came to embody a deeper symbolic meaning. Decorated with flowers, plants, ships, mythological and folkloric figures, hyperthyra became symbols of family, protection and identity.
Drawing on this tradition, Nieuwenhuys reinterprets the hyperthyron, not as a fixed architectural element but, as carrier of memory and histories. Translated from marble into embroidered textile, it moves away from its original function, evolving into weightless thresholds of passage. Embroidered with celestial motifs, waves, animals and botanical forms, the works drift towards a gentler, luminous, more colourful world. Echoing the protective carvings once placed above openings in Cycladic buildings, they transform into something intimate and tender.
Developed during the artist’s research in Volos, the works also enter into a dialogue with the architecture of Mount Pelion, where decorative feggites (fanlights) crown the entrances of traditional mansions. Framed with coloured glass, these openings once illuminated domestic interiors. Like the Tinian hyperthyra, they mark the threshold between home and the outside world.
At the heart of through clouds of silk is an ode to the angelic· a search for the light that persists within the memories of loved ones. Through the slow, repetitive gestures of embroidery, Nieuwenhuys honours stories and people that may often remain unspoken, recognising vulnerability as an essential part of living. Each thread becomes an act of remembrance, bringing forgotten narratives into view and allowing them to regain the poetry that belongs to them.
