Chisara Vidale is a visual and textile artist based in London, UK. Across painted and textile mediums, she imbues her work with imagination, colour, and spirituality.

Chisara's art explores spiritual representations and embodiments in the natural world. In psychedelic hues, she sees a prism of colour in simple life forms, such as leaves and fungi.

There is a mythological aspect to her work, with ties to England's ancient world of druidism and paganism. Her spiritual animal, the horse, is represented frequently in her paintings as a majestic and conscious creature. 

Humankind's tendency for hierarchy is dismantled in her art, examining balance and coexistence in the natural world. It's a call to look towards nature to restructure and align our existence beyond our current destructive and overly consumptive ways of living.

For the Raha collection, we collaborated with Chisara on upcyling vintage leather handbags. Manipulating wool, we transformed these forgotten bags into tactile, one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable art.

BN: I quite like your exploration of England's ancient culture of druidism and
paganism. I find this aspect of the UK's history one of the most
interesting, but seems to be one that's largely forgotten. Why does this
period fascinate you, and what aspects of this culture would you like to
see return to the UK?

CV: I think that my interest in these ancient practices began with my love of walking and watching seasonal change. The seasons are such a large part of our lives in the
UK, we move quite quickly though long hot days to short cold ones in a continuous
rhythm. The moon cycle influences our bodies and the oceans, and the height of
the sun in the sky changes the way we experience sunrises and sunsets.

Part of my love of these ancient cultures is their reverence for these cycles in
nature and their honouring of the deep connection we have with them. Standing
stones like those at Avebury have such a beautiful presence, which I think is
enhanced by the countless generations who have greeted and celebrated solstices
there.

Marking these times of year and the ebb and flow of seasonal change in the
landscape gives permission for us to know that our minds and bodies also follow
these rhythms. Perhaps we would be able to give ourselves permission to slow
down more easily, if we were honouring these cycles as a society. It would be
amazing to see celebrations of the coming of spring, or the autumn equinox
become more mainstream, because I feel that in acknowledging natural cycles we
see our own better.

BN: You've been creating a lot of work recently, depicting horses. Why is the
horse a spiritual representation of your soul?

CV: The horses have always been a part of my psyche, and I rode horses growing up. For a while they hadn’t been a part of my work as I explored the plant and fungal worlds in depth. But a couple of years ago I was looking at the work of Franz Marc and his depictions of animals in the landscape. I was really inspired by the way that he integrated his horses into the land, they grew in and out of their surroundings.

Around the same time I was beginning to keep more in-depth dream diaries and
practice shamanic journeying using drumming. It was magical to feel a sense of the
mythic world coming to life in everything that I was experiencing though sound and
dreaming. I began to meet horses in these realms who were a part of me, or who
felt like old friends who gave advice and guidance.

Over time as I began to paint and draw horses more, a vision of this ‘otherworld’
developed into my current work. In this space there is an overlapping of time and
species, the horses are like aspects of my psyche experiencing the landscape in a
more fluid way. They are sometimes larger than mountains and other times smaller
than mushrooms, but always deeply rooted in the earth.

BN: What artists are currently inspiring you?

CV: I really love the work of the artists from the Transcendental painting group. They
were a collective of artists in the 1930s and 40s who explored abstract painting.
Agnes Pelton and Florence Miller Pierce were making such groundbreaking
painting, and imbuing a feeling of spirit into their work. I am also really inspired by
contemporary artists too like Nadia Waheed, who’s work is really powerful and
striking. There are also British artists, like Georg Wilson, whose paintings I love,
that delve into the folklore of this land and the underworld lives of goblins.

BN: What is your favourite colour, and why?

CV: Somewhere between a green and a blue, but I think green wins! Green is the
plants, the trees, hills and oceans, my eyes can rest in all the shades of green.

BN: What is something unexpected that inspires you?

CV: I love boats and particularly canal boats and narrowboats, although I don’t like the idea of being on a boat in the open ocean! Because of this, I walk London’s canals a lot and have begun walking canals out of London too. There is something about a nomadic way of life, often with gardens on the roof and pets in tow that is really beautiful. I think In my mind the boats are a bit like great herds, migrating up and down these watercourses. I think that the visual layering of these riverside
environments is the reason why there are so many rivers and waterways in my
work.

BN: What did you absorb from the source inspiration of Morocco for our
collaboration? What visual or spiritual elements were the most inspiring?

CV: I immediately felt a sense of colour, texture and warmth. I was drawn to the
overlapping and varying textures in Moroccan interiors and the combination of very
subtle and then very bold colour ways. I think I was most inspired by the mixed
natural materials, such as ceramic, earth, adobe, wool and wood. The idea of
mixing materials unconventionally appealed to me. There is also a spiritual
relationship to the land, using natural fibres and materials in this way is born of an
understanding of your landscape. Caring for animals, spinning and dyeing wool,
then weaving it into rugs, there is so much beauty and connection in both the
artistry and the process.

BN: How did you find working with fashion, and leather?

CV: It was really exciting to work with fashion and leather, I hadn’t worked on something with the goal of someone enjoying and using your creation before. It was really interesting to learn about how this informs your approach. I also really enjoyed the experimentation stage and developing a method to work with the bags from the initial sketches.

BN: If there were any medium of art you'd like to try, what would it be, and why?

CV: I would really like to work in ceramics, I did clay classes as a child, which I enjoyed, and would love to return to it one day. There is something so alchemical about being able to dig clay, create slips and glazes, burnish and fire the work outdoors. I think that the process of discovery would be really exciting. I want my work to become more and more immersive in nature as I progress, to be making across different mediums to create experiences for the viewer. I think that ceramics would bring a really interesting element to this.

BN: You used the term 'magical realism' one day while describing your art. What is this, and why do you align with this term?

CV: Magical realism is an approach to fiction and art that gives a realistic view of the world that is imbued with magic, blurring the lines between the supernatural and the mundane. I think my work aligns with this term in the sense that from a distance some of my pieces can look like an animal in a landscape, or a patchwork quilt, which are quite traditional approaches to art-making. But when you get closer to them, there are aspects that hint at an otherworldly space. There are large bacterial bodies floating through trees, the patterns of water reaching over a hillside, or patches of fabric that take on unexplained forms. I think there is a hidden magic in my work that is born of the land and the spirit that lives in everything.

BN: What's next on your creative adventure?

CV: I think it is something to do with words. I have been including small sections of text in paintings and on the back of quilts I’ve made. I want to develop this further, the connections between words, imagery and objects. I’m not sure what will become of these ideas yet, maybe a book, zine, wall-hangings, but I’m excited about it!