Biography
Emma Desirée Comer (26.02.2001) is a textile designer and fiber artist from Belgium, currently working between Belgium and the United States while pursuing an MFA in Weaving at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Her practice exists at the intersection of art and design, with a particular focus on sculpture and woven forms. Materials often perceived as discarded, unusable, damaged, or without function serve as the starting point for her work.
She engages with materials that have already lived a life and carry visible traces of use, time, and environment.
Centered on processes of reuse and transformation, her work embraces the used, the discarded, and the unpolished rather than concealing them. Traces of wear, repair, and change remain visible and essential, becoming integral to the meaning and identity of each object.
Rooted in a maritime context, Comer works primarily with discarded fishing rope, a material deeply connected to labor, craftsmanship, landscape, and time. Through traditional knotting techniques, she transforms this rope into sculptural works while preserving its original texture, damage, and variations in color.
By retaining these material histories, her practice explores the relationship between value and transformation, inviting a reconsideration of what is often overlooked or cast aside.