Needle & Thread

Born in Munich in 1963, Aurel K. Basedow completed a degree in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. In 2007 he opened the Draga & Aurel studio with his wife Draga Obradovic. In 2015, Aurel felt an urgent need to return to painting and began furiously at his atelier in Como, Italy.

"It was such a battered rug, found at a market that Draga didn’t even want to load it into the car" — Basedow recalls. Today, that rug is unrecognizable, buried in resin and color, but without it, there would not have been the kick-off to building a whole color series.

Aurel mostly uses Afghan, Moroccan, and Persian rugs—the result of continuous research. He sometimes covers them completely. Other times, he allows us a glimpse. A few strands or feeble weaves which — he says — “make reference to the past, to the matrix from which everything begins”.