DOVE linen’s near white has just a hint of turquoise blue, mimicking the pale, salty light of JMW Turner’s stunning Venetian marine views. Known as the ‘painter of light’, Turner was entranced by Venice, with its green-blue water reflecting the sky into illusions of infinite, endless space. The floating city became a recurring theme in…
All posts by Rosie Lesso
Enid Marx, also known as ‘Marco’, was one of the early 20th century’s most prolific and prodigiously talented designers, expanding her creative vision across a huge range of disciplines. From painting and printmaking to illustration and textiles, she spread her singular vision far and wide in a career spanning over 70 years. As a textile…
There is a pale, almost lilac tinge to Gouache Linen’s pastel blue, echoing the dreamy, mystical light of Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte. Master of the uncanny, Magritte transformed familiar objects into magical or metaphorical symbols by floating them amidst hazy, pastel skies and airy white clouds, letting them drift off into another world, where lucid…
Louise Bourgeois was one of greatest figures in modern and contemporary art, world renowned for the incredible scope and ambition of her sculptural work. Much has been written about the uneasy psychological tension of her art, which explores memories and traumas from her troubled past, casting light into the darkest recesses of her mind. But…
Contemporary artist Brent Wadden makes woven artworks that deftly blur the boundaries between textile and painting, proving the two disciplines aren’t so different after all. Stretched over canvas and hung on gallery walls, his boldly geometric textiles might first appear to be abstract paintings, but closer inspection reveals they are tightly woven by hand, lending…
New York based textile designer and artist Caroline Kaufman takes a free-wheeling, experimental approach to creating textiles, working in an improvisatory way to produce surprising and unexpected results. She is perhaps best known for her recent, wildly complex tufted textiles, which play with madcap colour schemes and zany patterns to produce functional rugs that look…
“No artistic success has given me such satisfaction as the sight of a peasant or a worker buying a length of material designed by me.” Liubov Popova Russian Constructivist Liubov Popova was a force of nature, expanding her creative ideas across painting, theatre set design and textiles. But many would say the bold, graphic power…
San Francisco based fibre artist Josh Faught makes visceral, tactile artworks that weave together multiple references: craft, sexuality, gender and queer politics. Working with weaving, knitting and crochet, his widely varied practice is almost always sculptural, whether hung onto the wall or strewn across wooden supports. While embracing traditional craft techniques, Faught also pushes his…
Playful, whimsical and naïve, the textile designs of Jacqueline Groag lit up postwar Britain, injecting homes, interiors and clothing with a renewed sense of vitality and optimism. Originally from Prague, Groag was the leading textile designer of the United Kingdom throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, showcasing a vibrant new approach to textile design that…
In amongst the wild forests and fjords near the Nordic town of Rissa lies a small, hidden community: the Fosen Folk School. Part of Norway’s wider ‘folk high school’ pedagogy, the school takes an alternative approach to education, focussing on the development of practical, handcrafted skills for life rather than tests and grades. From tiny…
Bauhaus textile artist and weaver Otti Berger was one of the greatest innovators of her generation, producing a dazzling array of complex and intricate fabrics that have inspired generations since. During her time as a student and later a teacher with the legendary German Bauhaus school she was endlessly inventive, experimenting wildly with weaving methods…
Pioneering modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe made a series of radical breakthroughs during the early to mid-20th century, taking seemingly ordinary, everyday subjects and investing them with a newfound wonder. Of all the subjects she painted, it is her flowers that have received the most critical acclaim; fleshy, bold, and daringly direct, they broke away from…
A self-proclaimed ‘late developer,’ fibre artist Claire Zeisler hit her stride during the early 1960s when she was nearly 60 years old, taking the United States art world by storm. Along with her contemporaries Lenore Tawney and Sheila Hicks, Zeisler became an outspoken, radical pioneer in the Fibre Art movement, taking the historical tradition of…
American artist Sanford Biggers has an incredibly diverse and eclectic practice encompassing a vast range of media, including film/video, sculpture, installation, music and performance. But his eclectic textile art is one of the most celebrated aspects of his oeuvre, in which he stitches together a vast array of fabric swatches into brilliantly bright, daringly experimental…
In Vincent van Gogh’s late paintings, pale blues like Sky became a primary feature, documenting his own intimate, expressive response to the landscapes of Saint-Remy and Auvers. His landscapes convey the wonder he felt at the swirling, iridescent blue light opening out above and all around him, which he painted in sparkling, luminescent shades of…
SEW THIS LOOK
Latest Posts
Search engine
Use this form to find things you need
LATEST COMMENTS
06 Jun 2024 @ 3:16 am by Nell Bednarz
07 Oct 2016 @ 7:21 am by Carolyn Eck
07 Oct 2016 @ 7:21 am by Carolyn Eck
09 Oct 2024 @ 1:14 am by Masha Karpushina
09 Oct 2024 @ 1:14 am by Jennifer Edington