Born in 1919, Mari Lai, originally from Ulassai, has made the theme of thread the center of her creations aimed at underlining the importance of the link between Sardinian tradition and contemporary art. In fact, for the artist, life is a set of relationships to be woven and a plot of threads aimed at generating harmony between people. Thus it happens that in her works, created on large white or colored canvases, fragments of threads are transformed into traces that recall ink on a white sheet. Among her best-known canvases, we must remember “Lenzuolo” – a large sheet broken down into sections of other very small rectangular pieces of fabric in turn divided by various folds made of thread-like black stitching that floats on the white background – and “Tela cucita”. In the work, which summarizes his artistic experience, the canvas is composed of three bands of fabric: the first in monochrome cloth; the second in wool decorated with the lapwing (a typical Sardinian motif, symbol of fertility) and the third in a darker fabric to give depth to the creation. Each band corresponds to a meaning: the first indicates the global world, the second the local world and the third the universal world. A system of wool threads that, as if woven by a suspended loom thread, unite separate worlds, also symbolically tie them together.
