Swedish mid-20th century artist Birgit Skiöld was a pioneer in printmaking, a serial experimenter who skilfully merged traditional printing techniques with playful abstract motifs that hint at the movements and patterns of nature. Much of her work was elemental and ephemeral, made up of wispy, uneven lines and ghostly, barely-there colours, but rich, dark blues…
All posts by Rosie Lesso
There is a remarkable symbiosis between Sara Buscaglia’s life and work; she seamlessly blends her charmingly old school textile art – mostly exquisitely handcrafted quilts, but also knitting and clothing – with running a successful and prolific organic farm, where she is currently raising a family of four children alongside her husband. Based in La…
The paintings of Swedish visionary Hilma af Klint are filled with quiet wonder, gateways into their own private spiritual realms where looping floral patterns intersect with floating geometric patterns. Each artwork she made was invested with her own codified language of signs and symbols that pointed to her fascination with abstract, ethereal forces beyond the…
Swiss designer and artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp was one of the most significant and influential voices of the early 20th century, with a multidisciplinary practice that spanned embroidery, beadwork, textiles, painting, sculpture, furniture design and more. She successfully blurred the boundaries between fine art and design, bringing the same inventive, playful and instantly eye-catching brand of…
The cold, blue silence of BLUE BONNET Linen hovers like a thick mist through Edvard Munch’s paintings, investing his artworks with a mysterious, pervading ennui. Munch’s Expressionist and Symbolist drawings, paintings and prints captured the changing spirit of the early 20th century, when dramatic intellectual and industrial changes tore apart traditional Victorian values and replaced…
“No colour has been prized so highly or for so long, or been at the centre of such turbulent human encounters.” Catherine E. McKinley Indigo’s deep, intense blue has a long and complex history which spans millennia. Originally derived from the tiny leaves of the Indigofera plant species in tropical regions, the rare colour became…
The silvery grey-blue of LAGOON linen became leaden, steely skies in the hands of painter Joan Eardley, capturing the furious energy of storm-laden seascapes in thick slabs, swipes and streaks of moody colour. A master in capturing the wild, elemental and unspoilt beauty of the Scottish coastline, Eardley heaved huge canvases into the landscape during…
The name Sonia Delaunay is synonymous with kaleidoscopic colours and prismatic designs that seem to splinter, shift and dance before our eyes. In a 60 year long career, her daring, vivid Simultaneisme encompassed paintings, textiles, fashion design, costume and interiors, making her one of the greatest pioneers of the Modernist era. While history has favoured…
Deep shades of indigo like Japanese Blue were a potent tool in the arsenal of much-loved 19th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, a means of investing dark, brooding shadows into his atmospheric woodblock prints. From the cavernous depths of gushing waterfalls to the timeless silhouette of Mount Fuji, he layered this entrancing shade of darkness…
In Hannah Hoch’s collage wonderland anything is possible; men’s faces sprout wings and chase primeval monsters, broken artefacts assemble into beasts and women’s bodies are cut apart and left to float in space. She wrote: “…there are no limits to the materials available for pictorial collages – above all they can be found in photography,…
Pioneering early 20th century Viennese designer Emilie Flöge is perhaps best known as the recurring muse to Secessionist painter Gustave Klimt. He painted her as a dazzling vision adorned in glittered clothing, all flushed lips and raven hair, staring out at us with strident self-confidence. The pair lived and worked together so closely that their…
Legendary, charismatic textile artist Nike Davies-Okundaye has led a live that is as colourful and eventful as her art. Now recognised as one of Nigeria’s foremost textiles artists, she has spent the last five decades successfully invigorating the traditional techniques of batik and adire, merging them with shimmering passages of embroidery and intricate patchworks loaded…
British-based, self-proclaimed ‘slow-stitcher’ Jessie Cutts is founder of the eccentric textile company Cutts & Sons, for which she produces hand-made, intricate quilts, wall-hangings and fabric-based artworks with a rich and deeply tactile quality. “There’s no mass-production here!” she says. Instead, each fabric piece is carefully crafted from a blend of natural, sustainable fabrics, many of…
“The best of these designs are so eye-poppingly gorgeous that it’s hard to know how to begin to account for them. But then, good art can never be fully accounted for, just described…” Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, 2002 Brilliantly eccentric and ludicrously inventive, the multi-generational quilts emerging from Boykin, colloquially known as Gee’s Bend,…
Pascal Monteil’s rich, vibrant tapestries are rich with references to stories from all around the world, featuring mystical, fictional characters in colourful, intricately adorned clothes, or taking part in collective, dream-like scenarios. As much as they invite us in to contemplate their hidden symbols and stories, they are also exquisitely made, sometimes taking up to…
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