Though Achaintre’s process is highly technical and labour-intensive, she develops her work quite spontaneously. Because she has to tuft the wool from the back side of the canvas, her compositions are developed largely through intuition. The holes in the canvas allude to the unseen space behind the face; these enhance the works’ sculptural form and also give a sense of ‘false’ presentation or apparition. Moustache-Eagle has a mystical quality: it’s both a man and a bird and suggests a state of transition. Its rich colours convey an exotic power that’s simultaneously entrancing and ominous. Achaintre considers her work as part of a tradition of tapestry; her works’ theatrical images function as both pictorial illusion and concrete (and potentially usable) object.